


(run) far away from home

by chuchisushi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Minor Character(s), Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 31,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi/pseuds/chuchisushi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Princess Mononoke AU: It's a long journey west for a cursed former-prince, and he finds nothing for his troubles except a bloody war, a beautiful man raised by wolves, and a new beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_It’s too still_ , he thinks to himself; the grass of the field stings at his ankles as he pours chakra into his legs and puts on a burst of speed. Uneasiness builds in his gut, and when he reaches the western lookout tower, he scales its height without a pause, clambering up the wood to swing into the nest at the top.

The sentry only gives him a cursory glance, turning his attention back to the treeline immediately.

“What is it?”

“Not sure, Kakashi-sama,” the sentry replies. He shifts a few inches to the side as his prince crowds to the edge, golden eyes scanning the trees.

“There’s nothing moving out there.”

“The animals are all hiding.”

“But from what?” He shrugs his longbow off his shoulder, drawing an arrow from the quiver at his hip and setting it ready; the silence is far too tense, the normal noises of nature all eerily silent. “They’re as quiet as rabbits hiding from a hawk--”

As if to answer him, something screams in the skies above; both men jerk their heads out from underneath the covered nest’s roof, eyes turning upwards in surprise.

There’s a… a birdlike _thing_ in the air above the forest; it banks on wings wreathed in writhing, wormlike shadows and the very air shifts around it, warping as though heated. Baleful red eyes stare at the ground below, and the creature--the demon?--screams again, the noise like steel scraping against steel, like the crunch of bones breaking, like the wails of the dying all rolled into one.

“What is--” the sentry manages, before the monster spots them, folding its wings with another cry and plummeting into a dive. “--gck!”

The shadows strip away from the creature as though torn off by the speed of its descent, exposing a massive eagle, its beak easily as long as Kakashi’s arm and its wingspan large enough to block out the sun. Rage and pain and three black tomoe swirl in the scarlet depths of its eyes, and Kakashi instinctively knows it will kill them here and slaughter those in the village and continue on in its blind wrath if not stopped or turned aside, and instead of retreating or bowing to the instinctive fear rising in his chest, he leans further out of the sentry’s nest, nocks, aims, and looses the arrow at his bow in one smooth motion.

It whistles past the eagle’s head, startling it; it squalls in response, the shadowy tendrils catching up to its form once again, wreathing it in wriggling shapes, and the gale from its wings as it falters and claws for altitude is enough to make the wood of the tower creak around them. Kakashi snags the back of the sentry’s shirt and leaps out as the floor buckles below them; they land in a tree, the leaves and branches snapping at their bodies, but a little chakra to his feet allows Kakashi to regain his stability. He leaves the sentry on a limb and descends to the ground as quickly as he can, hitting the grass running.

He can hear his pack barking and howling in the distance, and as he emerges from the shade, his eyes sweep from the blurry black shape of the demon coasting above him to the path to the village. There’s figures running away from the changed eagle, fleet as rabbits, and he recognizes the fleeing girls, pours chakra into his legs to close the distance faster in response.

“Unknown god!” he yells as he runs. He’s still too slow, despite the strain he can feel in his legs and his lungs; he throws his voice at the sky anyway, grasping at straws to delay the destruction. “Return to the shore or the mountains of your home and leave us in peace, I beseech you!”

One of the girls trips.

She painfully skids to a stop in the grass, and the other two running halt as well; Kakashi nearly howls like one of his dogs from frustration as the demon-god ignores his words and stoops into a dive. One of the girls still standing throws her straw hat aside and draws the tanto at her hip, staring up into the sky at it; it’s Rin, Kakashi sees, Rin with an expression of fear and determination on her face, her stance textbook-perfect just like he’d taught her, and everything in him rebels at thought of her dying in this field today.

Something in his knee gives, screams at him in protest as he uses too much chakra, but his last leap is enough to close the gap and he’s firing another arrow before he can think, running solely on adrenaline-fueled reflex. The steel-tipped arrow arcs up and buries itself in one of the eagle’s massive eyes in a blossom of scarlet; it wobbles in the air as it screams in pain and falls, trying to slash at Kakashi with its talons as it descends.

He skips out of their range and can hear his dogs darting into the gap he’s made in the flow of battle, herding Rin and the other girls away; Kakashi keeps his eyes fixed on the floundering eagle as it's grounded, bracing himself against the wind it raises with its wings. It’s in its death throes, the arrow piercing deep into its brain, but dying animals can still kill and he won’t relax until it’s lifeless.

He doesn’t see the shadowy tendril soon enough to dodge back; he ducks under it instead, moving closer to the eagle’s body, and gets the second to the face, the shadows moving absurdly fast. It scrapes against his left cheekbone, his eye, his head, and it hurts like paper-thin blades parting his skin, the wounds burning with agonizing fire; he drops his bow, draws his tanto, and slices into the pseudolimb in one movement, twisting his body, and comes face-to-eye with the eagle as the tendril dissolves under the assault, the demon stilling.

“I’m sorry,” something makes him say; he watches the red drain out of the former god’s remaining eye, leaving it an empty pool of black.

“You’ve ruined me,” it says back, and Kakashi can hear his people’s cries behind him, the gathered making way for the village holy woman, escorted by his pack. His eye hurts, he thinks distantly, but he can’t look away from the god’s final moments, the shadows dissolving away from it in a growing pool of dark liquid that stinks like days-old blood. It’s killing the grass, and that thought is distant as well.

“Unknown god,” says the holy woman; Kakashi can hear the rustle of her clothes as she bows. “Proper rites will be performed for you, and a shrine built upon this ground. Please, be merciful and do not hold your grudge against this place into death.”

“You’ve ruined me,” the eagle repeats, and its eye is fixed unwavering on Kakashi. “And you will bear the burden of my curse, my hatred, my pain. You will know the true agony of the world before the merciful illusion of death takes you, and you will suffer as I have suffered.”

And Kakashi feels the weight of its words sink into his bones.

The eagle dies between one syllable and the next, its flesh and feathers rotting away from its body to leave just its bleached-white skeleton behind, and silence descends upon the assembled.

His knees buckle, and the world tilts down and away, arcing around until the sky and sun are all he can see (it’s an oddly nice day, he thinks, to find out he will die begging for death), and unconsciousness and pain slam him into red-tinted darkness before he can think to fight.


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes hours later to the warmth of his eight dogs curled around him, his wounded knee chakra-healed, and his left eye bandaged over. It’s night, and as soon as he can stand, he’s called to the holy woman’s home, the temple; trailed by his pack, he kneels and waits. He feels curiously detached from the people around him, like a muffling wall lies between them and him, and he wonders absently if he’s been drugged while he was unconscious.

The holy woman casts scrying stones for him, and Kakashi can feel the chakra imbued in them from where he sits. She speaks as she throws, sunken eyes watching the patterns they make with a craftiness at odds with her age.

“The god came from a land far in the west, driven by the weight of his wrath and maddened by hate.” The stones click against each other, speaking in a language unknown to the rest of them; she tucks a hand into her sleeve and withdraws an object like another stone, heavy and unyieldingly solid when it falls to the floor. “This was found in the eagle’s body. It broke its bones, tore its flesh, and turned it into a demon. Kakashi. Please uncover your eye.”

He obeys, and the world through that orb takes on a scarlet hue, slowed and broken by the shape of silvery tendrils and solid forms. The basket of seeing stones at the holy woman’s hip glows like a small sun, the shadows of the river and the earth from where they were taken confusingly overlaid with their current use. Gasps rise up from the line of men against the wall, low sounds of dismay, and he closes the eye when the sight becomes too much; the overlay on the world disappears. He covers it entirely before he’s prompted, settling the bandages over his face.

“The demon placed a curse upon you. Your eye. The marks upon your face: they will spread until they cover your body, and then you will die. They will cause you great pain. I cannot stop it. You are a cursed being; our prince Kakashi died today upon the field of battle.” Ironic, that, not Rin, but he. There’s only silence from the other men now, morose and sorrowful. “You are dead to us. Go west and see with eyes unclouded--perhaps there, the spirit of the eagle that lingers over you will find peace.”

The holy woman tucks her hands into her sleeves, and Hatake Kakashi becomes just Kakashi as he severs the strands of his hair, slicing away his topknot around the bandages, leaving it and the blade he’d used on the altar. He knows it’ll be burned and funeral rites will be performed over it in lieu of his body, the smallest comfort such a living death could offer to those left behind. Strands of his father’s silver fall over his face, and he stifles his bitterness at the thought of his family’s legacy ending here. Maybe it’s better this way, Sakumo and his son falling to the mists of time and the line dying so--he’ll never have to make the decision of whether to put honor before reason now, and neither will his heirs. Instead, he will leave his people leaderless.

 _No_ , he thinks. _That’s not much better_.

But it can’t be helped.

“No-one may see you depart,” and Kakashi nods at her words, bows deeply to her, and rises with his dogs, taking the curious metal ball as he does.

He gathers his bow, his quiver, his father’s tanto, now his, a chain and sickle, knives, the supplies he’ll need for a long journey. He knows he’ll likely die without ever finding the eagle’s lands, and he cannot decide if that fact is liberating or damning.

Maybe both. He covers the lower half of his face, tosses a straw raincoat over his shoulders, and walks for the gates of his former village, the long, single tooth of his geta silent on packed dirt, his dogs ghosting around him, loyal to the end.

“Kakashi!”

He stops at the half-hissed yell, turns his head to the left before remembering he cannot see from that side anymore, and moves his body instead as Rin runs up to him, something held towards him in her hands.

“Take it. I know; I never saw you here; I don’t care; take it anyway.” Her eyes are filled with tears, and Kakashi resists the desire to wipe them away, to hug her. She could be killed for this, for seeing him, and he knows he can’t do anything about it, that this was her decision to make; he looks instead at the thing she’s holding out to him and presses his lips together behind the fabric of his mask.

“Rin… your ceramic dagger--I can’t.” He knows what it means to her, the use she gets out of it, the way she channels her chakra through it when she heals or fights. Ceramic forged sharp enough to be a blade is rare and difficult to make; she’ll likely never get another weapon as perfect as this one.

“Please.” One of the tears falls, and he notices her hands are trembling. “To remember us.”

“Rin…” He exhales, soundless, and closes his eye for a moment, opens it and reaches out to pluck the weapon from her hands by the red cord it’s attached to, carefully not touching her. “I would never forget.”

“Please… travel safe.”

He loops the cord over his head and feels the blade settle against his chest as an unfamiliar weight and says nothing back, turning instead to run, sending chakra to his legs and passing through the gates in a flurry of dirt and pebbles--Rin recedes behind him, tears freely falling down her face, but he doesn’t look back to see.

\--

His face is very distinctive, he finds as he travels; it’s more than just the color of his hair or eyes or the paleness of his skin--the further he gets from his former village, the more stares he receives. He knows some of it is from the mask and the bandages over his face, but he doesn’t dare remove them: he’d stopped by the first body of water he’d found when the emotional numbness had faded into bone-deep weariness and uncovered himself for his own look at his curse.

His face is marred by patches of shiny skin, purpled like the scars of poorly-cleaned wounds that have still managed to heal, done in raised too-straight lines crossing his cheek and cutting perfect squares into it. The lowest of the lines reaches his lips, slicing across them, and they travel across his ear and start down the hinge of his jaw. They look ugly, harsh, and unnatural--he’s glad for the mask.

The largest scar slices down through the center of his eye, and Kakashi had opened it, bracing himself for the invasive tug at his chakra and the scarlet-drenched world he’ll see; the iris is as red as fresh arterial blood, bounded by rings of black and infused with shifting patterns. Three black tomoe spin indolently about the pupil, briefly forming the shape of a pinwheel before dissolving again.

He’d closed it and tried to not be sick. He is truly trapped.


	3. Chapter 3

He and his dogs lead each other, following the trail of the former god. They’re bred for fields, forests, mountains, and hunt as deftly as they fight--they’re one of the two things he has left of his mother, his name being the other. His tanto and his memories are all he has of his father, so he supposes it evens out.

They’re good trackers, and when they lose the scent, he can find it again, either by using his mind or by asking people. His dogs are intelligent, but they can’t speak--which is a pity--because, in some of his more uncharitable moments, he thinks that they’d be more interesting than some individuals he knows. Knew.

Ah. Right.

(And he knows they can hunt for themselves; if he spoils them a little with jerky or game he’s helped bring down, well, that’s his own business, now isn’t it? It’s not good to short family.)

 --

Things aren’t all peace, though.

He hears the screaming at the same time as the dogs do, their ears perking up; he moves down the road at a slightly faster pace in response. The screams resolve themselves into individual voices, and he comes over the rise to see people fleeing over rice paddies, their possessions desperately bundled on their backs as they run from men with weapons and segmented black armor. The slowest are mercilessly cut down, and Kakashi is moving almost before his brain registers the decision, spurred by the sight of the defenseless being slaughtered.

One of his dogs bays, Uhei maybe, by the sound, and the rest of the pack take up the call, surging down the hill to attack; Kakashi draws his bow and an arrow and aims for a samurai about to bring his polearm down upon the head of a girl no older than Rin, firing. The projectile takes the man in the wrist, making him howl, and Kakashi grins in satisfaction behind his mask as he keeps running forward, readying his next shot.

The dogs kill another samurai in a blur of flashing teeth and snarls, hamstringing him like a deer before bringing him down, but his companion recovers too quickly, swinging his polearm around to stab at Guruko.

That’s the last straw; Kakashi feels his temper flare and abruptly his world is flooded with red light, the movements of the samurai, pack, and peasants as slow as pouring honey, and he can _see_ the way the blade will strike Guruko, the way its killed people before, the way its wielder grew up, and the space in time during which the weapon was given to him, and Kakashi snuffs out the man’s life like blowing out a candle, the next shot chakra-strengthened and blowing through the samurai’s weapon, hand, arm, and head in a gory spray of bone, blood, and matter.

The body drops like a stone; his eye and head flare with a mingled pain and feral triumph and Kakashi can’t help the noise that escapes from between his teeth at it. The tide of battle is turning though, the girl he’d saved gone, run away, and he wrenches his chakra away from the eye, shutting off the sight of red. The rest of the samurai are quick to fall back when he makes an example of another, cutting the horse out from underneath him with a single chakra-infused shot; he calls his pack back with a sharp whistle and takes advantage of the confusion in the samurais’ ranks caused by his intervention to disappear into the trees.

He’ll have to stay off the road for a while.


	4. Chapter 4

The goods in the towns he passes through get increasingly unfamiliar, but rice is rice no matter what.

Only Pakkun and Bisuke are with him; the rest of the pack is outside the town. People tend to get nervous when all eight of the dogs are with him (for some reason), but both Pakkun and Bisuke were the runts of their litters, tending towards small and rangy in their adulthood rather than the muscle that the others are prone to. They’re the ones that look the most like the domestic dogs he sees in the villages, and two aren’t enough to alarm anyone (overmuch).

He hates busy markets like this; the constant press and push of people is too much for him. He gets it from his mother, his father had told him once, that dislike of being near others for too long; she had been the same way, inevitably escaping from this or that function after a few hours. His father would find her later rolling around with her dogs, her best robes filthy as a result.

(He’d said one of the happiest days of his life had been when she’d let him stay instead of siccing the mutts on him the second she spotted him; they’d been children then, and even if she’d never said a word to him, he’d known she’d been hyperaware of him, more-than-ready to bite if bothered. It had taken even longer for her to interact with him, and the time she’d dumped four wriggling puppies into his lap and herded her pack to him, accepting him if he held firm in the face of their sharp teeth and inquisitive, protective investigations, had been another one of those best days--as well as being one of the most terrifying.

Kakashi had always remembered the expression on his father’s face, though he’d only told the story once; he’d loved and lost and it had torn him apart in a way that he’d never recovered from. Kakashi hadn’t understood what punishment grief and love intertwined was back then; now, burdened with the memory of both his parents, he thinks he has some idea.)

The female merchant holds a bag of rice out to him, and Kakashi rouses himself from his thoughts to give her a false smile, his exposed eye curving, attempting to be friendly in the face of her hostile suspicion. He has a feeling she doesn’t buy it, but he can’t really say he cares--he kneels and makes a smooching noise at Pakkun, who chuffs in a disgruntled manner and pads to his side; Kakashi slips his fingers into a hidden pouch in the dog’s collar and withdraws a single nugget of gold, tossing it to the woman, who drops the bag to catch it. Kakashi’s standing with the bag in a hand before she recovers, already turning to walk away.

“Hey-- _hey_! What is this shit--this isn’t money!” She gestures at him, trying to grab the hem of his raincoat; he hops out of her reach and casually shrugs.

“It’s money if you get it changed and more than enough to pay for the rice. Take it or leave it; I don’t have the time nor inclination to deal with coin.” (Really though, he just doesn’t want to hang around this overly-busy place more than he has to.) The woman looks like she’s going to yell for the guards or pummel him herself, and Kakashi keeps his posture amused and relaxed, more-than-aware of his surroundings and the potential for a fight.

Unexpectedly, a slim, black-haired figure slips between the milling people like a predatory fish through water, and plucks the tiny nugget of gold from the woman’s fingers, looking at it for a moment before replacing it; Kakashi focus his attention on him, sensing that he’s the most-dangerous of those immediately around him.

“It’s gold,” the man--no, boy, Kakashi realizes, mentally revising his previous estimation of his age with the reveal of his voice--says, tone weirdly flat.

The woman doesn’t believe him, the expression on her face clearly skeptical, but before she can protest, the crowd parts (apparently unconsciously, and isn't that terrifying) to make way for a man even more heavily bandaged than Kakashi himself is. The dark-haired boy, he notices, falls into place behind the man’s left side, posture dropping instantly into one of submission. A master and a servant?

“He’s right,” the bandaged man says, “and has no reason to lie. If you do not believe him, find a moneychanger for yourself.” He’s already dismissed her, his gaze traveling over the crowds until it finds Kakashi, who’s melting away into the press of people, making good of the opportunity to escape.

He’s followed out of the town gates, but neither man nor boy seem to want him dead; they just trail after him until he collects the rest of the pack, neither approaching or leaving. Exasperated by their behavior, Kakashi turns towards them, calling out, “Well?”

They only move a little closer, stopping well out of striking range; Kakashi notices that the youth is discreetly watching his hands and posture.

“You were at the battle earlier,” the bandaged man says; he inclines his head slightly at Kakashi in greeting. “I am Shimura Danzo. I saw your fight and was impressed with your prowess, but did not recognize the style--I was interested in where you were from--and if you would be willing to enter into my employment.”

Kakashi keeps his eye fixed on Shimura, absently cataloging the crossed scar on his chin and resisting the desire to glance at the boy at his side. “And your companion? You haven’t introduced him.”

“A good personal weapon doesn’t need a name; it only needs to fulfill its purpose,” Shimura replies bluntly. “I have powerful allies if that is your concern, all loyal to me; I do not care if you are a criminal or a fugitive. You will be paid half of your full reward before a job and half afterwards. You will not want for food to eat or opponents to fight. I do not offer such contracts lightly. Yes, or no?”

Kakashi makes a hushing noise at his pack; he can feel them, tense and growling around his legs, their hackles raised. His would be, too, if he were a dog. “No, thank you; I must decline.” _Why would I wish to join you_ , he wants to add, _if you treat your men like nameless weapons, interchangeable and easily replaced once broken._ But he doesn’t speak; he has a sense of self preservation.

Shimura doesn’t seem surprised; his single visible eye wanders over Kakashi’s form, taking in his straw raincoat, his grey robes, the weapons at his sides, the tengu-geta on his feet, and the eight dogs staring at him.

“They say there was a race of people in the far east who could call down lightning from the skies, led by savage kings and queens with hair as white as bone and eyes as bright as gold," he says adruptly, just as expressionless as he'd been when he'd given Kakashi the offer of a job. "They were called the cloudwalkers, the skysent, natives of heavens' fields for their silence and grace; they balanced on tall geta and left no signs of their passage in their wake, as light and insubstantial as clouds--until angered, upon which they were as fierce and merciless as storms, and left nothing behind but destruction. They tamed the raiju of the skies and bound them to the forms of fierce hounds who fought at their sides, traveling in great hunting packs across their lands.” Kakashi relaxes instead of tensing like he wants to, lets his open hands hang loose and ready. “But they’re as much fantasy as beasts that speak and the Forest God of Irontown--imaginary rulers of a land that man is beginning to conquer.”

“I suppose so,” Kakashi says carefully, then whistles for his pack and turns to continue down the road, more-than-aware of Shimura’s eyes on his back.

He resists the urge to run. The last thing one shows a predator is fear.


	5. Chapter 5

Irontown is out of the way, traveled mainly by trade caravans loaded down with rice and iron ingots; they’re a new town, hacked out of the wild forest by the might of man, as Shimura had said. Kakashi decides to withhold his judgement on the place until he gets there.

He pauses at the river he’s traveling next to, stops to drink and catches the smell of dead animal in the water instead; curiosity piqued, he travels further up its course to see the remains of what must have been one of those trade caravans carried past by the current. His single eye widens with surprise when he realizes that there’s people amongst the dead; he barks a command to the pack and they disperse to look for those still alive along the banks as Kakashi works on fishing out the closest man he sees, one lucky enough to have washed up in a calmer side pool.

He’s not dead, he soon determines, just knocked out and down with a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder; he takes advantage of his unconsciousness to set both and leaves him in a puddle of sunshine to dry off as he looks for more survivors. He checks the lees of rocks and calmer water, and finds no-one save the dead, but works his way upriver despite that until a flash of white catches his eye.

He ducks behind a fallen log as his mind processes what his instincts had reacted to; he peers through the tree’s branches and suppresses his tiny inhale of surprise.

There’s a wolf on the bank of the river, a massive white beast half in and half out of the water. As Kakashi watches, two figures emerge from the forest closest to it; one is another wolf, smaller but still white-furred, and the other--the other is a human, lithe and wiry and moving with an animal's grace.

Both hurry to the side of the largest wolf, and the god (of that Kakashi has no doubts; the massive wolf has to be a god) heaves itself half to its feet, revealing a swath of white fur dyed red with blood on its chest.

The human makes an angry sort of noise loud enough to be heard over the sound of the river before it moves to clean the wound, shoving the strange red mask on its face up out of the way to suck out the pooling blood in the injury; the god has its ears back and its hackles up, but the curve of its head towards the human is affectionate, protective, the creature in pain but able to control itself--until its ears swivel forwards and it turns its head to stare right at Kakashi where he hides.

He freezes, then scrambles for a grip on the log, perching atop it and bowing deeply to the three.

“I apologize for my rudeness; I did not mean to intrude,” he calls out. “But I must ask--are you gods of the forest near Irontown?” Mentally, he crosses his fingers; politeness wouldn’t usually condone combining a probing question with an apology for interrupting a private moment, but he hasn’t been struck down for disrespect yet, so he’ll keep pushing his luck.

Neither of the wolves reply, but the human turns and straightens, glaring at him openly with a hostile set to his brows; _it’s a good thing his contempt is so naked_ , Kakashi thinks weakly, _because if he hadn’t been projecting such a strong killing intent at me, I might have swooned like a sheltered lord’s son. This must be love at first sight_. He’s beautiful, his emotions on display, wild and untamed and as savagely uncaring as the forest itself--and it is a man, he can tell now; there’s wolf’s blood smeared all over the lower half of his face, adding a richer hue to the olive-tan of his skin. As Kakashi watches (utterly entranced, he admits), he roughly smears it with the back of his hand and turns his head just enough to spit out another mouthful of red, all without taking his eyes off of Kakashi.

The largest wolf starts off into the trees, and the smaller darts out to drag the carcass of an ox from the water, pulling it to the forest. The man turns as well, the movement sharp enough to briefly send the white fur pelt hanging over his shoulders and down his back flaring, before following the wolves. Kakashi thinks it’s just going to be that, until the man yells, “Go away!” (surprisingly loudly, he might add) right before disappearing into the trees; the smile that breaks on Kakashi’s face at it would have looked mighty stupid if it hadn’t been covered by the mask.

A frightened shout draws him back to reality; Kakashi shakes himself like a dog and turns to hop off the log and pick his way back to where he’d left the man he’d fished out of the river.

“My my, making such a commotion--don’t you know there’s wolves around?” he comments lightly as he approaches.

“I’d rather be eaten by a wolf than be killed by a spirit!” the man snaps back; he’s awake and trying vainly to scoot away from the trees, eyes fixed on something by the roots of one. Kakashi notices his dogs are all back, apparently not having found anyone else alive, and most are lounging lazily around in the shade. Nothing really dangerous here, then; he looks for the thing the man’s yelling about and finds a small, semi-transparent, humanoid figure sitting on the roots of one of the trees.

“Oh.” Kakashi hides his amusement, bending instead to distribute some of his gear onto his dogs and hoisting the injured man onto his back, carrying him lightly and minding his broken leg. “That’s just a kodama. It’s harmless; they’re a sign that the forest is healthy. Which way is Irontown?”

“That way, but that’s through the forest; the road is--” The man yelps and scrabbles for a grip on Kakashi’s shoulders when he bows a little at the kodama.

“May we have permission to pass safely through your woods?”

“Whatareyoudoingyou’regoingtogetuskill--!” He yelps louder as the kodama wriggles bashfully, revolving in place and disappearing to reappear standing a little further in the trees.

“Nonsense. That looks like an invitation to me.” Kakashi whistles for the dogs, who heave to their feet, each adjusted to their additional burdens already. He walks to where to kodama stands (the little spirit disappears before he reaches it, reappearing against further away once more) and finds the beginning of a deerpath, wavering into the forest between the trees.

The injured man whines sharply as they pass into the shade, and Kakashi laughs silently at him. “What’s your name?” he asks as he walks, his one eye on the kodama. “And what do you do in Irontown?”

“Kotetsu. I’m a guard--I was with the ox-drivers who were bringing rice back... what, hang on, wait wait, you said there were wolves around??” Kotetsu’s attention goes from trying to look at all parts of the forest at once to fixed on the back of Kakashi’s head like _that_ , refocusing admirably quickly for someone who’d only been half paying attention.

“Yep.” Kakashi watches their guide run, flickering in and out of reality; more and more of his friends (?) (Or would they be relatives? Are all the trees in the forest related?) emerge from the foliage as they walk, curiously doll-like figures clustering around the path. The dogs ghost through the brush as well; Kakashi sees bits of them at times. Bull seems to have gained a few kodama passengers in the intervening time, four of them happily riding atop his back.

“Crap. I take what I said back; I’d rather be killed by these guys than Hiruzen and his clan.”

“Hiruzen?”

“The big white one. Minato and his riflemen were firing at him earlier on the route, but I don’t think they could have killed him--gods are tougher than that, right?” Kotetsu makes an unhappy noise. “Shit, I don’t wanna die.”

“Well, it has to come to everyone, eventually,” Kakashi replies cheerfully. Kotetsu splutters. “And the rest of his clan?”

“Another male wolf--that’s Asuma. There’s a female one, too, but we haven’t seen her around lately… that’s Kurenai.”

“And the human?”

Kotetsu gasps. “You saw him?? And you’re not dead?”

“If I were dead, I wouldn’t be carrying you, now would I?”

“... I guess that’s true. The guy’s the Mononoke Prince.”

“You don’t know his name?”

“What--of course not! What were we going to do, ask him while he’s stabbing us?? ‘Oh Sir Prince, could you wait on _perforating my lung_ and have a proper introduction’? _Geeze_.” There’s a pause. “Hey. Hey, man--what’s your name?”

“Kakashi.”

“You really don’t look like you could scare off crows… maybe attract them…”

“Would you like me to leave you here?”

“Erk! No thanks!!”

(He was kidding. Mostly.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack, oh gosh guys, I'm astonished at the number of views and kudos this fic has already--thanks so much for reading!! 
> 
> Also, I thought I'd dispense a warning about a bit of eyescream near the end of this chapter--not much worse than what happens in canon but yeah, still there. ;v;/

Kotetsu was a chatterbox (though some of it may have been nervous rambling). After a few hours of walking, Kakashi had found out that he was unmarried; that he worked guard shifts with his best friend Izumo; that he was best with a mace; that his armor never really fit well enough; that Lord Minato was a certifiable legend; that said lord has a lovely wife who was also the terror of the town; that said lord was a reasonable and good leader; that he had a son of three years who was born on the same day that the first stone of the town’s foundation was laid; that the women in Irontown were amazing and terrifying; and the Lord Minato had wrenched the place from the forest itself with cannon and flame, wresting control of the region away from the beasts.

Kakashi got quieter and quieter in response. Not just because he was tired--but also because he was imagining the force that claiming Irontown’s territory would have taken and wondering about the sort of man who’d be willing to _use_ such force. He wondered if any of the townspeople had been in the forest itself. He wondered about the casualties on both sides.

He gets thirsty, eventually. Kotetsu isn’t a lightweight and hiking through the woods is made only a little easier by the trail. The kodama stream by, some carrying others encouragingly, and the one leading him seems willing to wait if he needs it.

“Is there water safe enough for us to drink around here?” he asks it almost jokingly and is a little surprised when it pauses and changes directions, leading them away from the place they’d been heading.

He’s not disappointed; the trees clear away a bit, not standing quite as densely, and open out on a massive pool of clear water, studded by small islands of moss and larger ones with trees.

“Woah,” Kotetsu says, and Kakashi mentally agrees; it’s very impressive. A sense of peace is palpable here, weighing comfortably heavy and almost holy in the air. Kakashi wouldn’t have been surprised to find that some of these trees had been here since the beginning of time.

He sets Kotetsu down on the moss and fishes his bowl out of one of the packs on Bull; the dogs have all crowded to the water’s edge, drinking noisily and happily. Kakashi snorts and kneels to rinse out the bowl, fills it, drinks, and takes the next back to Kotetsu.

Then he returns to the water, ruffling Shiba and Uhei, who’ve managed to get soaked in the short intervening time, and kneels again, unwinding the bandages from his head and pulling the mask off his face.

He hisses in dismay at his reflection in the water; the scars have spread. He tugs at the neck of his mask and stares at the dark lines cutting over the muscle, sliding down below his clothes. He wonders if it’s spread far enough for him to see without the use of a mirror. At least it isn’t going _sideways_ ; that would have been even harder to hide.

Well. More difficult than it already is.

His left eye throbs and _pulls_ abruptly; Kakashi flinches at the spike of pain that follows, breath escaping in a wheeze. He can _feel_ his eyeball rolling around in its socket of its own volition, straining against the constraints of its human biology, and Kakashi’s forced to look in the direction it’s pointing at or risk doing irreparable damage.

He doesn’t think he’s staring at anything for a minute, that sunlight is just diffusing through the gap in the trees there and coloring the air golden, then he remembers that they’re far, far away from any place that sunlight could easily reach, the canopy thick above them. There’s shapes moving through the light, long-legged deer flickering between the trunks, and Kakashi squints, just glad that the eye hasn’t activated; he doesn’t think he could handle the strange sight it imparts on top of his growing headache and exasperation. What’s so important about the deer anyway?

Something--not a deer, surely--something with too many antlers and not quite the right silhouette crosses the light, and the cursed eye chooses that moment to throb again. Kakashi bites back a curse as the pressure in his head _spikes_ , his eyeball swelling and pressing at all the wrong places inside the socket, and feels something trickling down his cheek, leaking out from under the closed lid; he touches it and his fingertips come away red and wet.

Fuck.

He’s bleeding. He’s bleeding and he doesn’t know how to stop it and his eyeball feels like it’s still swelling, growing, _hurting_ , and he fights against the pain for coherency, takes a breath, and shoves his head under the water instinctively, seeking the peace in the place to calm the curse.

 

The silence of the forest becomes absolute, muffled by the water in his ears, and his eye throbs once, twice, and stills. Threads of blood color the water before gently dispersing, and Kakashi holds his breath as long as he can before jerking his head out again.

The golden light is gone, the forest returning to its usual gloom; the pack abruptly crowds close to him in a cacophony of worried whimpers and wet tongues slobbering all over his face.

“Augh! Gross! Dog mouth! And I just rinsed off!” Kakashi laughs and shakes himself off like one of the pack, flinging water droplets everywhere and making his hair stand on-end; he wipes the rest of the moisture off on the end of his sleeve and starts re-covering his face.

“Uh… Kakashi, sir…” Kotetsu sounds a little concerned. He’s probably wondering about his rescuer’s sanity. (It’s a good question.)

“Just cooling off,” he replies airily, waving a hand in the air and otherwise not shifting until he’s finished reassembling himself, upon which he stands and turns around. “Shall we keep moving, then?”

“Oh. Uh…” Kotetsu stares up at him rather leerily, but says, “Sure. The sooner we’re out of this forest, the better,” despite it.

“They’ve been quite accommodating so far.”

“That doesn’t make it much better.”

“At least you’re not dead.”

“Gah! Why would you even _say_ that?! Are you _trying_ to jinx me??”

Kakashi laughs silently and keeps needling Kotetsu--anything to keep from thinking of his eye bursting in his head and the pointed reminder the past minutes were of his inevitable, painful death.


	7. Chapter 7

They do make it out of the forest, Kotetsu and he, and the residents of Irontown seem happy enough to see the guardsman alive. One of the men at the gate screams obscenities down at Kotetsu without ever leaving his post; Kotetsu cheerfully replies in the same vein, finishing with, “I missed you too, Izumo!” and a sappy grin. He gets a sandal thrown at his head for that, with surprising accuracy considering how poorly the thing is balanced.

Kakashi stands at the lake’s shore until all the pack have clambered out of the water; there wasn’t enough room on the flatboat to carry all eight of them and still have room for people, so some had swum. He accepts the subsequent drenching as they shake off as his due and stays where he is on the shore, watching Izumo (who’s finally left his post) simultaneously hug and strangle Kotetsu with amusement and detachment.

“Izumo! Don’t kill Kotetsu; he just got back!”

Kakashi (and everyone else on the shore) turns at the voice, looking up towards the gate to see a woman with astonishingly red hair standing at the drawbridge. She’s wearing simple clothes with simple patterns under a cloth harness, and the small face of a blond child pokes over her shoulder, looking at everything curiously.

“Yes Lady Kushina; I won’t kill Kotetsu--I promise to stop at _maiming_.”

Kushina (and Kakashi can see how she’d run roughshod over the weak willed now) laughs heartily; the child laughs as well, waving and clapping his hands together. “Well, you’ll have to wait--Granny Tsunade wants to see all the wounded. Girls?”

“Yes Lady Kushina?” and Kakashi blinks; the cadre of ladies suddenly surrounding the redhead seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

“Take Izumo to the infirmary, would you? I gotta escort his rescuer.”

“Yes Lady Kushina!” the ladies chorus, moving as one well-coordinated unit to separate Izumo and Kotetsu, effectively bundling the latter up between the six of them and spiriting them off into Irontown. Kakashi blinks again in surprise; the entire maneuver had been executed with a minimum of resistance and all the irresistible force of an earthquake.

Kushina waves goodbye at the girls and Kotetsu as they go, calling out, “AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH, KOTETSU, FOR YOUR HARD WORK! WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE BACK!” in an astonishingly loud voice before turning to Kakashi and grinning at him. “Well! Come on then; come up here!”

Kakashi cautiously picks his way up the bank, his pack orbiting around his ankles, to where Kushina stands; the next minute, he finds himself enveloped in a rib-groaning hug, squeezed tight around the vicinity of his lower rib cage.

“THANK YOU VERY MUCH AS WELL FOR BRINGING KOTETSU BACK! WE TRULY APPRECIATE WHAT YOU’VE DONE!” she exclaims into his chest, and Kakashi manages a strangled, uncomfortable demurral before he’s released.

“Come on then--my husband will want to see you,” she adds at a more human noise level; turning on a heel, she strides through the gates, obviously expecting Kakashi to follow her.

He gives Pakkun a skeptical sort of look; the dog bunches his brow up at him and then sneezes as if to say, “I don’t know either.”

Kakashi shrugs and takes his first steps into Irontown.


	8. Chapter 8

Kushina is extremely popular; she nods and smiles and exchanges greetings with almost everyone she sees. The child on her back--a boy, Kakashi can see now, and this must be their son--echoes her actions, smiling or waving hands at people (when his attention isn’t focused on the dogs).

The people of Irontown give him a slightly wider berth; Kakashi gets no more hugs and just the occasional thank you here and there from Kotetsu’s friends. He’s glad for it. He doesn’t think he could keep himself from accidentally injuring anyone if they were too enthusiastic; it’s stifling inside the town somehow, too many people around him all the time, despite the enforced perimeter his dogs keep for him with their bulk, and it makes him paranoid.

The building Kushina leads them to is astonishingly peaceful in comparison; Kakashi can hear the roar of the town outside, but it’s not loud enough to be anything but background noise. Workers, both men and women, patter here and there with armfuls of iron ingots, and a steady chiming noise comes from the back of the building.

Lord Minato sits at a low bench, testing each ingot that passes him with a tiny hammer, making notations on a tag of wood at his elbow. An unarmed man, in an astonishingly orange kimono and clashing green hakama, sits beside and in front of the bench, dark eyes watching everyone with interest too casual to be anything but attentive. Kushina bends down for a kiss before she sits, the gesture bestowed absently on her lips as Minato finishes testing this batch of ingots, setting the last atop the stack next to a worker before turning his attention to Kakashi.

“Welcome to Irontown,” he says, and doesn’t pause, flinch, or otherwise react when Kushina plunks the child from her back onto his lap. The kid and he look extremely similar, Kakashi notes, with hair the same shade of blond and eyes the same blue.

“Thank you for returning Kotetsu to us--he would have been greatly missed.” He pauses. “I don’t think I introduced myself. I am Lord Minato, one half of the leadership of Irontown. The other half is my wife, Kushina, whom you’ve met. And you are…?”

“Kakashi.”

“Kashi!” And all four of them, even the guard, look at the child, who’s smiling wide enough at Kakashi to dimple his rosy little cheeks and expose white teeth.

“Close enough,” Kakashi says; the boy grins even wider. Kushina laughs, Minato smiles, and Kakashi relaxes marginally where he sits.

He carefully doesn’t tense up at Minato’s next words: “I must ask though--how is it that you managed to bring a guard from the caravan I was accompanying back to town and arrive at the same time as we did? My guards report that they saw you approach from the forest, burdened by Kotetsu--but I’d like to have some confirmation.”

“My, my… I merely traveled as the crow flies,” Kakashi replies lightly, letting his visible eye lid. “We made good time.”

“You traveled through the forest,” Minato says flatly, and the guard is moving for his throat the next instant; Kakashi reacts just as quickly, intercepting the hand that would have struck him with one of his own, lightly threatening a pressure point in the guard’s wrist and half-drawing the blade at his hip with the other. The dogs were just as fast; Kakashi can tell by the quality of Urushi and Akino’s muffled growls that they have ahold of something vital on the guard, more-than ready to bite down and maim. (Kakashi absently hopes that it’s hamstrings and not the man’s balls; he’s here to investigate, not start a war.) The rest of the dogs are on their feet, bristling at Minato and Kushina; the lady has pulled a needle-thin blade from somewhere inside a sleeve, and the lord has a bladelike, tri-pronged truncheon in one hand, his son already behind his other arm.

Tension stretches between the four of them before Kakashi says mildly, “My, my, was that really necessary? I assure you I’m not a spy for the wolves; I'm a bit too obvious for that.” He sheathes his tanto (though he doesn’t let go of the guard’s hand) and continues. “I was already coming to Irontown on other business.” Slowly and deliberately, he reaches in his shirt and withdraws the iron ball, setting it on the floor between them and him; Minato’s eyes flick to it and away, back up at Kakashi.

“This is a shot from one of my guns,” he says, and Kakashi nods. “Why do you…”

“I got it from the body of an eagle who used to be a god. I killed it, and it cursed me to suffer before I die.”

Kushina gasps softly, and the tip of her stiletto droops; Minato’s face goes a little grey.

“How far have you traveled?”

Kakashi shrugs. “Far enough. I tracked the trail of the eagle’s rampage across the land and ended up here. I just want answers." He pauses, then adds honestly, "I’ll make decisions on what to do about what I learn later.”

Minato stares at him, eyes unnervingly bright in his face, and abruptly jerks his chin at the guard, putting away his weapon. “Let him go, Gai. If you bear a mark from the curse, let us see it as evidence of your words.” His voice is flat and hard, but his eyes linger over the bandages and mask on Kakashi’s face.

He lets go of the guard’s wrist and clucks at the dogs, who all slink back to his sides, casting suspicious glances at the residents of Irontown. Kakashi waits until Gai has resettled himself back beside the bench and Kushina has sheathed her blade before reaching up to untie the bandages and pull down the mask, blinking open his left eye.

The world washes red instantly, and all four of the figures before him glow with hearts like tiny suns--though the brightest by far is Minato’s son’s. Kakashi holds it open as long as he can, fighting against the strain it puts on his chakra, before closing it with a nearly-inaudible sigh; the world takes on its normal colors. Kushina’s hand is over her mouth, her son’s face pressed into her chest by one of her hands, hiding him from the sight, Gai’s skin color is approaching the shade of his hakama, and Minato looks grim.

“... let’s take a break. Gai, please inform the other workers. Kakashi, I invite you to dine with us.” Minato rises, and Kakashi starts reassembling his bandages and mask.

Gai glances between Minato and Kakashi. “My lord… are you sure?”

“Yes. Thank you, Gai. We will see you later tonight.” Minato starts walking, trailed by Kushina holding their child; Kakashi follows them, his dogs at his heels, leaving Gai in the deep bow he’d dropped into at his lord rising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minato's using a sai; I took some liberties there since the tri-prong weapon didn't actually make it to Japan until almost two centuries later and then in a single-pronged form; it was the closest thing I could think of to his tri-point kunai and emphasizes his role of reluctant aggression in this story since the sai isn't a stabbing or slicing weapon, but an adapted club typically used to disarm and restrain people. (Also because symbolic naming half-puns later with Sai. :"D)


	9. Chapter 9

Minato didn’t travel straight through the middle of town, thankfully; he took what passed as sidestreets in the little place and the four of them ended up in front of a house on the edge of the residential quarter that was only a little more elaborate than the ones it was next to. Two paper lanterns hung by the door and, inside, the wooden floors were clean where they weren’t covered by tatami mats. Several families lived inside the structure (Minato and Kushina spent most of their time as they walked through responding to the greetings called out to them), the same as the rest of the houses in Irontown, and the most-lavish aspect seemed to be the large courtyard that the building partly encircled, one wall of the inner battlements and a tall fence comprising the leftover enclosure. The tactician in Kakashi approved of the part of the wall being used as a support being the part that faced the lake; approach and attempted attacks would be difficult over such an open expanse.

Suites of rooms, each housing a family, sprout off of the main hallway; the kitchen takes a suite all to itself and is currently the center of activity. Kakashi’s stomach growls at him, reminding him that he’d missed lunch due to the journey through the forest.

The Irontown leaders’ rooms are at the back of the house, and everyone takes off their shoes before trooping inside, leaving them in the hall. Kakashi’s eye flits from the weapons on display to the weapons hidden around the landscape of the front room before returning back to the thing that had first caught his interest; shelves of scrolls stand against the walls, ranging from ‘ancient’ to ‘moderately crumbling’ to ‘just old’.

“My family's treasure,” Minato says when he notices Kakashi’s interest. “Myself and my son notwithstanding.”

The words take a moment to sink in. “Your family line…?”

“Dead,” Minato says, and Kakashi can feel the finality in the word. “This and that pared us down to almost nothing--the fire that took the house consumed the rest. Those--” He gestures at the shelves. “--and myself are all that’s left of what was once a great library and the original bloodline. Come, sit. Tea?”

Kakashi’s eye lingers on the scrolls for a few seconds longer before he turns to drop down next to a low table across from Minato. Kushina had disappeared somewhere into the back rooms after leaving a teapot, snacks, and two cups. Minato pours for them both.

“So you’ve come to the source of the shot, but I’m sure you still have questions that need answers,” the lord says after they share a few moments of a surprisingly comfortable silence. “But before you ask them, I do have one more of my own--what do you intend to do now?”

Kakashi shrugs, taking a sip of tea, his mask pulled down and loose around his neck. “I was told to see with eyes unclouded--and I have nothing better to do, so I will. The alternative is waiting passively for my death, but I have to admit that I’ve always been a fighter: the prospect of yielding without an attempt at resistance doesn’t sit well with me.”

Minato nods in understanding. “Very well. What are your questions, then?”

Kakashi takes another sip of tea as he thinks. “Why this?” he asks eventually. “All of this: why Irontown, why here?”

“When the alternative was sitting in the ashes of my family’s home?” Then Minato sighs. “But I suppose that’s not completely true either. Perhaps part of me, in grief and rage, sought a way to honorably die fighting. What began as a death wish became a new way of life--this is one of the sole outposts to strike out into the forest in this manner. Few thought I would succeed, and even fewer thought I would survive more than a year. Three years later, this town thrives--and produces the best iron in the region to feed the country’s appetite. Now, it’s not just the gods we have to contend with, but human greed as well; Lord Kaguya sends samurai to harass my people every time they leave the walls.” Carefully, Minato sets down his teacup, and Kakashi can read his tension and anger in the stiffness of the action. “I only want to protect my people.”

Kakashi swirls the tea in his cup around. “Why have I heard no family names since I entered the town?”

Minato blinks then, strain bleeding out of him in his surprise, and says, “Observant, aren’t you?” in a tone that’s a little too dark to be amusement. He laughs and then shakes his head, his shoulders untensing. “We gave them up. Everyone who lives in this town--we all sought a new beginning. I gave up my name and status as the last of my line to create this place; those that follow me have done the same. We are the people of Irontown; we’re all one family, one village. There are no lines between us.”

“I imagine that must get confusing at times.”

Minato laughs again. “Not really. Family names are kept on record, just so we can keep track of who’s marrying who and who has children with who, but aren’t used beyond that. And this way, those of us who come to Irontown having forsaken their former lives are able to easily start again with a clean page.”

“How do you remember those that have died, then?” Kakashi asks with honest curiosity. “Family shrines…?”

Minato tilts his head towards the east. “There’s a stone on the edge of town with the names of those who have fallen. The entire town mourns for them as any family would.”

Kakashi grunts and takes a sip of tea, eyeballing the snacks. “What was the name of the eagle who cursed me?”

“Obito,” Minato answers promptly. “He was one of the few who were shot when we claimed the land. His body was not among those that fell--I'd thought him recovering amongst his kin.”

Obito. Kakashi rolls the name around in his head. “You should add his name to the stone,” he says casually.

Minato stiffens, staring at Kakashi for long moments before subsiding. “... I will think on it.”

He nods and finishes his cup of tea. It wouldn’t be much memorial for a god that had died far away from his home, but perhaps it would help. “What do you plan to do with Irontown? And with those that threaten it?”

“Fight them. Win. We will persist--we will not tolerate threats upon our home or our people.”

“Even if they’re gods?”

“Even if they’re gods.”

 

Dinner is quiet, but polite; Kakashi feels like a guest despite his actual status as an unknown, potential threat.

After dinner, when Minato and Kushina’s son has been put to bed, the two leaders take him to the courtyard--and the garden it contains. The guard by the exit from the house has a fire cannon, Kakashi notices--as well as two sightless, silvered eyes, staring disconnectedly out into empty air.

“Evening, Hoheto,” Minato says as they pass.

The young man flashes a smile in his direction before saying, “Three sets of footsteps and eight animals--who’s the guest, m’lord?”

“His name is Kakashi.”

“And the dogs are his?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.” He smiles in Kakashi’s direction. “Don’t cause any trouble for m'lord if you would; we can aim by sound alone and I'm a fair enough shot to take off your head.”

Kakashi blinks. “Duly noted.”

At the back of the garden is a low-roofed house, larger than a set of rooms in the main one behind them; Minato and Kushina make no attempt to be quiet as they approach, and the door opens before they reach it.

“M’lord, m’lady, and… guest? Come in. We have the next model ready.”

Kakashi has to duck his head a little to get through the door, and all eight of his dogs flood in behind him. The door is shut by another man with white eyes, who sits down again; there’s darkness in the house for a moment before candles are lit from the few braziers in the place.

His eyes adjust, and Kakashi takes in the people in the house with silent surprise. There’s maybe twenty total, he counts; six are in the room they’ve entered and the rest are visible through open doors in the rest of the building, scattered in groups of three or four. Men, women, and children are all present and each and every one of them have the same eyes: silver, distant, and blind.

Two men sit quietly, side by side, and talk with Minato and Kushina amicably; Kakashi recognizes them as twins at a second glance. Another man sits next to two children, one a girl and one a boy, face turned in the direction of Bisuke, who’d managed to squirm his way over to the children when Kakashi wasn’t looking and is now in raptures, a doggy grin on his face as both children coo and pet him. The rest of the pack is giving Kakashi clearly plainative looks, and he sighs, flapping a hand at them. “Fine, fine, go make friends.”

The kids are delighted at the addition of seven more (playthings) dogs; Kakashi watches them and estimates the girl as about Minato’s son’s age and the boy as a little older.

“Minato informs me you mean to see the town with eyes unclouded,” someone says next to him; Kakashi turns to face one of the twins. “And that you have been harmed as an indirect result of his actions.” The man nods at him in greeting. “I am Hizashi, one of the heads of the former Hyuuga clan.”

“And you’re speaking to me to prove a point, not just to be polite.”

Hizashi flushes slightly. “You’re as perceptive as Lord Minato,” he mutters, before continuing. “As you have been hurt as a result of our lord’s actions, it would be well within your right to demand recompense, a wereguild, from him. But… you must understand: Minato is an honorable man and well-loved amongst his people for it; he would willingly do whatever you wished to repay you for your death. I only ask that you show some mercy and do not harm him--he is… the heart of this town. He’s given so many hope.”

Kakashi watches as Bull gently picks up the girl by the back of her shirt and sets her back on her feet; Urushi dries the tears of pain from the unintentional fall she’d taken with his tongue, soon turning her sobs into giggles. Hizashi continues, voice soft.

“We were cast out from our ancestral home--once, our clan was strong and powerful, but sometime in the past, one of the heads was born with this.” He gestures at his face, indicating his eyes. “It bred true, and soon all of the Hyuuga were blind. We have our fighting spirit, but the body does not follow, and our enemies and former allies destroyed us. Minato saw us as people still when we were no more than beggars--he brought us to Irontown and gave us a home and a task that only we could do. We are grateful to him--would give our lives for him.”

“You’re not the only strays he’s taken in, are you?”

“Lord Minato welcomes anyone who desires to start anew--children abandoned by their families, bastards, even criminals seeking to repent. Lady Kushina buys the contract of every brothel girl she meets, frees them and gives them the choice of whether or not to work. Former lord, whore, peasant, wanderer--they don’t care. All are equal in their eyes; all have their worth.”

“And all of you would fight for your home and them.”

“Of course.” Kakashi watches as Minato hefts a slim fire cannon, passing it to Kushina, who does the same before frowning and shaking her head; she passes it back to Minato, who stands and scales a ladder to the roof, passing through a trapdoor and disappearing outside. “They are our beloved leaders and the heart of our family.”

Kakashi leaves Hizashi and his dogs where they are and climbs to the roof as well; he stands, hands tucked in his sleeves, as Minato loads and fires the cannon off into the distance. The iron ball strikes one of the naked flanks of the cleared mountains around the town, exploding in a flare of overbright sparks.

“Still too heavy for the women, but fires as smooth as silk,” Minato remarks, keeps sighting down the length of the weapon. “I’m afraid this is the last of my secrets, Sir Kakashi. Hiashi and Hizashi’s kin create these guns for my people. Their hands are very skilled; living as they have for so long in darkness, their sense of touch is very acute.” He lowers the cannon and continues, softer. “They consider themselves cursed as well, damned by fate to die helpless and useless, writhing blind amongst the trash of the world.”

“Do you consider yourself their savior for giving them a purpose?”

“I consider myself _human_ ,” Minato snaps; his eyes snap to his and blaze with a fierce light. It’s the angriest Kakashi’s heard the man. “I’m no better or worse than any of them out there, beggar, whore, cripple: my worth just happened to lie in a place that was more visible than theirs. I would fight for any of them like I would fight for _myself_ , because that is what they  _deserve_ ; it's not a question of  _pity_ or  _mercy_ like so many _damn fools_ seem to believe!”

Silence stretches between them in the wake of his outburst.

 

“They’re just fighting for their homes and families as well,” Kakashi says into it, and Minato’s shoulders suddenly slump, rage dispersing as though it never was to leave just bone-deep exhaustion behind. He turns away from him to stare out across the lake, dyed black and silver with the night.*

“It would be too easy to fall into the role of savior,” he says eventually. “They all already think so highly of me. But I’m no better than those that drove them away from their first homes, in a way. I’m just on their side now.”

 _It’s a leader’s burden_ , Kakashi doesn’t say; instead, he claps a hand to Minato’s shoulder for a brief moment before releasing him. Honor or reason. That decision had been the one that broke his father irreparably, gentle man that he’d been; he was too kind in his convictions and the guilt had eaten him alive.

“I, too, was a prince,” Kakashi says instead, and Minato nods once. The silence returns, wells heavy around them.

 

“I will hunt the Forest God,” Minato says this time. “When we fought the eagles, we scared them away, drove them further into the mountains so we could clear the trees for the iron sand underneath them. We didn’t expect the wolves, and I’ve lost many of my men to them. But they fight and speak and one of Hiruzen’s clan is with pups--I would prefer to not kill them outright.

“The Forest God rules over their lands… and if he dies, the woods would be tamed. The animals would be born as just animals, and when Hiruzen, his clan, and the eagles die, there would be no more gods among the trees--and the Mononoke Prince would be human again.” He pauses, closes his eyes.

“The blood of the Forest God is supposed to be able to heal any illness, any injury… maybe it could remove your curse. Maybe it would lift the blindness from Hiashi and Hizashi’s kin. The Emperor thinks its head will make him immortal, is willing to offer anything to those that bring it to him. My son Naruto and his children would be able to grow up in the richest land imaginable.

"All it would take is one death.”

 

Kakashi watches the shadows move on the naked hills, Minato silent at his side.

 

 

“Would that truly be better?"

“I don’t know,” he says, and there’s devastation and iron mingled in his voice. “But it is what I will do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *) I realize this part is sort of unclear but I left it that way since Minato and Kakashi are supposed to be geniuses; I'm sure they would have caught this if it had come up in conversation. :"D When Kakashi says 'they', he's referring to the wolf clan and the gods who're trying to drive the people of Irontown away; he brings it up specifically at that moment, after Minato's speal about fighting for the Hyuuga and the people of Irontown because they're still people and deserve it, because it hammers home the point that the two sides are the same. Minato knows that, really, but is committed to his course of action because he has to act for his people, putting duty/honor before reason because he's their beloved lord and leader (thus Kakashi's bit, since, as a prince, he would have been groomed to make choices like this).
> 
> (what do you mean this chapter is 1000 years of exposition, i don't know what you're talking about)


	10. Chapter 10

Minato offers a place in the town to Kakashi when they’re standing in the garden later, after they’ve left the twins’ people’s house, like he’s sharing a joke with him; he genuinely laughs when Kakashi refuses, saying dryly, “You know, you’re the second person in two weeks to do that, to know what I’m going to say and offer anyway; am I really losing my touch? I’m afraid all the women won’t wonder at my mystery anymore if I become so transparent.”

Kakashi does ask for permission to explore the town freely, which is easily granted; he finds himself much more comfortable with this Irontown, one where the streets are emptier and filled only with the noise of people from the buildings. He wanders here and there, listening to voices coming out of bars, the sounds of celebration for Lord Minato’s safe return, and finds himself at the massive foundry at the center of the city.

There’s women working the floor bellows, he notes with interest; surprise is added to the mix when he recognizes one of them as Lady Kushina. With her red hair hidden away underneath a bandanna and her clothes traded for even simpler working ones, she looks perfectly at home, singing with the others in rhythm with their steps.

The pack shies away from the foundry, not liking the smell or heat, and Kakashi leaves them panting at the door when he enters; he watches the bellows for a solid minute unnoticed before Kushina realizes he’s there.

“Oh! Kakashi!” She calls over her shoulder for one of the girls to take her place, sliding out from her post to greet him. “How did talking with my husband go? I guess you didn’t accept his offer if you’re still wandering around, but…” She looks at him curiously and doesn’t seem disappointed when Kakashi shakes his head.

“You work the bellows as well?” he asks instead; Kushina grins in response.

“I was a dockworker and shrine maiden before I became my husband’s wife; I’m used to hard labor. And besides--it’s not really fair to just sit aside and reap the benefits of the iron we make without ever pitching in, right?” She scratches the back of her neck ruefully. “I miss doing the full four-day shift with the rest of the girls, but I have Naruto to take care of now; I can’t be selfish in that.”

“Dockworker and… shrine maiden?” Kakashi asks weakly; there’s a story in that somewhere. _Four day shifts?_ he adds mentally. “May I try?”

“Sure! Just be careful to not strain anything.” Kushina taps herself back in as Kakashi strips off his shirt and kicks off his geta, leaving his gauntlet gloves, mask, bandages, and pants on; he tags out a woman at the end of the row, takes ahold of the rope handle overhead, and steps down.

He wheezes a little in surprise at the amount of resistance and automatically sends chakra to his leg to strengthen it; his next push is a little too strong and sends the women on the other side of the bellows squealing as they’re pushed upwards.

“Ah--it’s a bit more than I expected,” he remarks to the air, and the women laugh, not unkindly.

“It’s heaven compared to where we were, though!” one further down says; her hair, escaping in wisps from under her bandanna, is an odd shade of black, almost purple in its shine, and she’s astonishingly large-chested. There’s scars on her legs, exposed by where the cloth has been hiked up by work; Kakashi thinks that it probably is for her. Working in a brothel with looks like that--it wouldn’t have been kind.

“How do you sustain the chakra over four days?” he asks, and gets a chorus of ‘What’s that?’ from them; he falls silent and tries to decide if it’s more or less astonishing that these women work the bellows for four days without chakra than it would be if they did.

He quits after an hour, leg tingling but thankfully not sore due to the reinforcement of it; the rhythm of the work is comforting but too docile for him. The ladies urge him to come back and work some more another time; he curves his visible eye in a smile and waves goodbye instead of answering. He can see why Kotetsu would call them amazing and terrifying.

He walks around town to cool off, debating whether or not to peel down his mask so he can pant like one of his dogs. He eventually decides against it; the streets are empty now, but it’s not guaranteed they’ll stay that way.

And it’s a good thing he does--the sound of an alarm fills the night air with a sudden clamor; Kakashi’s ears metaphorically perk and his dogs’ literally do. He recognizes the content of the shouts after a second, and it spurs him into action, scrambling to send chakra to his feet and leaping up onto the wall of a nearby building, traveling by rooftop.

“Wolf! And the Mononoke Prince! We’re under attack!”

He can hear the report of cannons now, firing at the wolf and man, and a huge _crack_ as something hits something on the wooden outer walls. There’s a pause, then shouts of alarm from a point on the sentryway. The townspeople are rallying; Kakashi can see them flooding into the streets, everyone looking for the intruder. The white blob of the Mononoke Prince flits and darts from the outer battlements across the rooftops in a zigzagging pattern--Kakashi realizes with a start that he recognizes the hunting pattern. The Prince is searching for something--or rather, someone.

“Mononoke Prince! I know you seek my death--come and face me! There are a few widows here who wish to have a word with you as well!” Minato’s voice echoes about the roofs, and Kakashi bites off a curse, racing the Prince to where Minato is.

He doesn’t win; one of the women flanking Minato fires off a lucky shot that blasts into the roof in front of the Prince, startling him and covering the forearms he’d raised defensively with cuts and splinters from the flying shrapnel. Stunned, he rolls down and off the roof, landing on all fours in an alley and groggily staggering to his feet--only to be knocked down again by the next shot, which only clips him but blows the red wolf mask off of his face.

The townspeople roar and dive in for the kill; Kakashi whistles sharply and barks at his dogs, who scatter at full speed to dart across the roofs and flank the downed man. Kakashi himself draws his chain and sickle, flinging the blade with chakra-fueled strength into the lantern stand in the alley before the incoming charge of the villagers; the blade connects with a satisfyingly loud noise, slicing straight through the lantern, the holder, and the stand itself, biting a small crater into the ground below it and sending wood and heated oil everywhere.

The villagers freeze, holding back cautiously as Kakashi drops down to the ground amongst his dogs, recalling the sickle with a deft flick of his wrist and starting the weighted end of the chain swinging in a tight circle in his other hand.

“Not one step further,” he says into the silence. “I claim the Mononoke Prince. Harm him and answer to me.” Minato’s gaze and his meet through the crowd, and the lord inclines his head and shuts his eyes for a moment before raising his chin and staring boldly at Kakashi, the picture of a fearless leader once again. Regretful--but determined all the same.

The smallest rustle sounds behind Kakashi, and he’s reacting as soon as he’s registered it; he whirls and blocks the Prince’s slash with the curve of his sickle, turning the blade once, twice more, leaping back and positioning himself for the next strike--that never comes. The Prince ducks around him, barreling straight through the mob of townspeople with chakra-fueled speed to stab at Minato.

Metal against metal rings out in the streets; the lord blocks the Prince’s next strike with the length of the ‘blade’ of one of his curious weapons, lashing out with a matching one in his other hand. The Prince disengages to duck out of range of the attack, darting back in to have his blade caught in a prong, lashing out and jumping back once again; their fight is utterly silent save for the occasional wolflike snarl from the Prince and the jeers of the crowd that have surrounded them. Kakashi lets the chain of his weapon fall slack, loops the loose length of it around his forearm and yanks the bandages off of his head and the mask off his face with two fingers of the hand holding his sickle.

“This is senseless,” he says; he can hear the exasperation shading into cold anger in his voice. His dogs all bark once in unison before scattering--streaming out of the alley to start pulling at people in the mob surrounding Minato and the Prince, clearing the way for Kakashi’s steady advance.

Gai notices him and shifts into a readier stance; he’s still weaponless but Kakashi is sure he doesn’t need one anyway--his very body is a weapon, deadly in its movements. It’s a pity his is as well: Gai strikes, flickeringly fast, and Kakashi downs him with the momentum of his own attack, dodging out of the way as red fills his vision and turns the man’s movements sluggish, yanking his hand in the direction he was already going in and bringing him facedown to the ground with Kakashi astride him and his knee planted in the middle of his back, the blade of the sickle threatening his neck.

“Stand down,” he says quietly. “I won’t harm your lord--just remove the Prince.”

Gai falls still under him, then turns his head, apparently heedless of the blade, to look at Kakashi out of the corner of his eye; he replies evenly, “Don’t die out there--it’s been too long since I’ve had a decent Rival.” He pairs his words with a dazzling grin; Kakashi snorts and regains his feet in a second to resume his advance. Behind him, Gai sits up, rubbing the wrist of the hand that he’d attacked with, silent as he watches Kakashi walk through the way that his pack has cleared, right into the battle between the Prince and Minato.

He moves too quickly to track: one second, the people of Irontown are gaping at him standing at the edge of their enclosing ring; the next, he’s across the formation, grabbing the wrist of the Mononoke Prince in an unbreakable grip and tangling one of Lord Minato’s weapons in a loop of the chain at the hilt of the sickle and pinning the other down with the blade itself.

“You look terrible,” Minato remarks to him, straining against the hold. “Your eye’s bleeding.”

Kakashi shrugs, nonchalant. “I can’t exactly do anything about it right now. My hands are a bit occupied.”

Minato snorts, an ungraceful, human noise, and says, “You’re determined about this, then?”

“I can’t exactly see both sides if one side is dead, now can I?”

“Let. Me. _Go_!” Both Kakashi and Minato blink at the volume of the Prince’s words, turning to glance at him; this close, Kakashi notices there’s an interesting scar across the bridge of the man’s noise, crossing straight over the fanglike red triangles on either cheek, and that his eyes are a deep shade of brown, like rich soil. He’d been digging at Kakashi’s forearm, hunting for pressure or chakra points to hit, he realizes, but isn’t having any luck due to the chain. Which is why he’d done it.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Kakashi replies.

“You--you _wretched_ human!” he snarls back, and Kakashi shrugs again, arching his eyes at the man and smiling.

“Mostly guilty as charged.”

“Try to not die out there,” Minato says, and surprisingly, twists away, managing to slip out of the clinch; Kakashi reacts automatically (probably like Minato had meant him to, he thinks ruefully), his hand darting out to pinch several nerve bundles, knocking the lord out. Kakashi catches him with his forearm, then figures he might as well make a set and does the same to the Mononoke Prince, who keels over, suddenly dead weight.

Kakashi bends to ease him onto his shoulder and calls out to the crowd, “Well? Someone come here to get your lord. He’s not getting any lighter.”

There’s a pause, utter silence due to their surprise, then movement in the crowd; Kushina and a few of her ladies push through to run to Kakashi.

“I just knocked him out,” he says to her, and she nods tightly. “He’ll wake up in a minute or two. Shouldn’t be any lasting effect but a small headache for the night.”

“If my husband didn’t trust you, I’d happily kill you for harming him,” she replies almost cheerfully.

“Hey, I promised Gai I wasn’t going to hurt him; knocking someone out painlessly isn’t harming. And no worries, the feeling's mutual; if killing him was something that could actually help this situation, I’d have done it already,” he replies lightly.

She transfers Minato’s sleeping body to herself, and Kakashi tucks his sickle away, closing his left eye. He can feel blood drying tacky on his lashes.

“Let him leave!” Kushina yells, and the crowd parts before them as Kakashi starts towards the gates, his dogs streaming out between them to flank him. “And don’t die doing something stupid!” she adds just for his benefit.

Kakashi indolently waves at her over his shoulder without turning around, makes it a few more steps, and hears a scuffle and shouts and the roar of a fire cannon firing an instant before a terrible, all-consuming pain pierces his back and chews all the way through his body to exit from his chest in a spray of blood and bone.

He sways, stilling his steps for just a moment (ah… Minato’s widows, right; he’d forgotten about them) before continuing forwards. If he falls here, within Irontown’s walls, the Mononoke Prince will die, and somewhere in the course of the past days, that thought had become unacceptable. He sends chakra to the wound instead (he spares a thought for Rin, who was so skilled with healing chakra; he wonders if she’s alive and if she’s happy), attempting to close the massive wound--or slow the bleeding at least, tries to dull the pain, and ignores the warmth of his blood soaking into his clothes in favor of keeping one foot stepping in front of the other.

His dogs range in front of him now, clearing the way for them, and cluster before the gate, eyes fixed on the guards. One of them is Izumo, Kakashi notices, and he raises the arm he’s not using to keep the Mononoke Prince steady on his shoulder to press his hand against the solid logs of the gate.

“Sir, please--it takes ten men to open this gate. You’re not going to be able to leave; just surrender and let your wound be looked at,” Kotetsu’s friend urges.

“We’re too grateful to you to let you go; you’ll die out there,” the other guard adds. Kakashi ignores both of them and diverts his chakra from his chest to his arm and legs, bracing himself and starting to walk forward, pushing against the gate.

It shifts in its mooring and gives--moving upwards with each step, swinging away, and Kakashi catches his first breath of nonmetallic air since entering Irontown as a gust of wind from the forest smacks him in the face. He counts eight furry bodies passing around him, making sure all his dogs make it out, before letting the gate drop solidly shut behind him with a final slam that makes the ground shiver.

A large white wolf darts across the ground towards him, anger and betrayal in its eyes, and is intercepted by Kakashi’s pack nipping around its ankles and delaying its forward charge; Kakashi calls out, “Your kin is safe; he’s just unconscious. Lead me away” to it, as serious and calm as he can muster.

The wolf gives him a deeply unimpressed look, but turns and begins running; Kakashi sends the chakra from his arm back to the wound and keeps the flow to his legs steady so he can keep up with the wolf. He can feel numbness setting into his limbs and notes the darkness eating into the edges of his vision, but at least the pain is growing distant. He just needs to get as far away as possible from Irontown for the Prince’s sake. Then it’ll be fine.

They’re ascending the slope of one of the cleared mountains when the Prince wakes up with a start and a wriggle; it throws Kakashi off balance and he trips, then falls, skidding painfully in the dirt and sending the Prince tumbling away. Everything’s distant, but he hears the wolf yelp, “Iruka!” and his dogs barking an instant before rough hands seize his shoulder and roll him onto his back.

A hand at his hip and the hiss of his father’s tanto leaving its sheath, and there’s a point of cold at his throat. Or is it warm? Maybe it’s him that’s cold.

“I didn’t need you to rescue me!” the Prince--no, Iruka--snarls, and Kakashi fights against the encroaching darkness to open his non-cursed eye. He’s looming over him, the tip of his blade resting against his skin; strands of brown hair have escaped from underneath the fur over his head, ragged bits of red-painted clay cling to the surviving ears of his broken mask, cuts pepper his face and arms, and Kakashi has never seen anything so lovely.

“My father…” he rasps with the last of his strength “... fell in love with a fierce, wild, _beautiful_ creature like you.” His eye closes, too heavy to keep open anymore. “... I guess it runs in the family.”

There’s a pause and then the warm point of his blade leaves his throat; there’s a scuffling noise that’s punctuated by a very human yelp of outrage, and Kakashi smiles as he adds quietly, “I wanted you to _live_ ” before darkness swallows him and renders him lost to the world.


	11. Chapter 11

He dreams, and it’s silent in the darkness.

He floats, suspended, and feels rather than hears the approach of steady steps, soundless foliage sprouting, proliferating, and dying in the course of one pace.

Four eyes look down out at him out of a face both feline and human, two on the sides and two facing ahead; the forward eyes are closed, and the sides stare down at him where he’s suspended with unnerving, solid-silver discs. Blind? Their lashes are ridiculously long, their white color matching the fall of the fur? hair? that slides down the Forest God’s long neck.

 _Oh_. he thinks. _It_ is _the Forest God._

It laughs, more of a texture than a sound, shivering across his skin in golden ripples.

 _Am I dead?_ he asks.

 _Would you like to be?_ it asks back.

Kakashi’s surprise and confusion fall on the space like blooms of colorless hues and are gently countered by more laughter from the god.

 _It would be a peaceful end to your suffering_. it says. _And you would not harm anyone with your passing._

Kakashi thinks, remembers, dreams of Obito’s rampage across the countryside. He could spare the world that and drown here in gentle silence, find peace in the depths.

 

_Irontown? And Iruka?_

_What would happen, would happen_. The Forest God gives off the impression of a shrug. _You would be gone from the world._

 _Oh_. Kakashi goes quiet. Quieter? _And if I live?_

_Then you would live. Until you died, of course._

_And I would be able to help?_

_To affect the world. For better_ or _worse._

Kakashi floats, pricklingly, comfortably aware of the Forest God. It’s strange--he would have thought he would have been afraid, meeting a god like this. Instead, it’s like meeting an old acquaintance, almost a friend if they’d had more time together.

 

 _I think_ , he says. _I think I’d prefer to try. To be able to try to help them. Even if I would suffer more, longer, for it._

The Forest God’s second set of eyes snap open, and Kakashi is speared by their intensity, green as deep as forest gloom pinning him down and freezing the very thoughts in his head.

 _Live, then--and be stubborn about it. I greatly dislike wasted potential_ , the Forest God says tartly, and then steps forward, plants and flowers and moonlight and stars blooming and dying underneath its wide feet, to bend its head and nuzzle at the wound in Kakashi’s chest, stemming the wavering flow of blood seeping out into the liquid darkness around them. The green eyes stay fixed on him until it withdraws. _Consider the rest my gift for the possible future._

They close; the blank eyes turn from his chest to his face and the golden laugh ripples across him again.

_Go on, then. Live._

_Thank you_ , he manages before he wakes.

Another drop of water hits him on the face. Kakashi cracks an eye open, decides it’s too much work, and closes it again. The forest is too bright.

Wet noses and snuffling noises poke and prod at his ears and arms, surprisingly gently for the urgency in the sounds. Kakashi sighs and smiles and says, “Yes, I’m alive” to the pack, who bestow him with a cacaphony of pleased yips and a few wet kisses across the face; Kakashi splutters like he’s supposed to and mumbles, “Gross! Dog mouth!” The pack chuffs like laughter.

God, he’s tired. It’s like chakra exhaustion, like the ninth day after the eight he’d taken to win his pack, like recovering from a wound the long way somehow all combined into one, and it’s a struggle to even stay awake.

He only has a second’s warning; there’s the soft sound of movement, a ripple passing across the surface of the water whose shore he lies upon, and another presence appears beside him, landing silently. Kakashi musters up the strength to open his eye again, and Iruka’s face meets his gaze, staring at him with mingled concern and suspicion. It’s still beautiful, and he’s found another mask somewhere, this one for half his face and currently pushed up to the top of his head.

“Oh good, you’re awake, he says, matter-of-fact. “Your pack was getting worried.”

“I’m sure,” Kakashi replies. “Where…?”

“The forest.” The ‘of course’ goes unspoken, though it’s strongly implied. As is the 'you idiot.' “At the Forest God’s stepping stones.”

“Ah.” Kakashi falls silent and just listens to Iruka greeting each of the dogs by name. “I had the strangest dream…” It’s slipping away from him now, the only things clear the golden ripple of the god’s laughter, silver eyes like the former Hyuuga, green eyes as sharp as leaf blades, and the god’s final words to him.

“The Forest God healed the wound in your chest,” Iruka tells him briskly. There’s a rustle, and something is pushed into his mouth. “Eat. It didn’t lift your curse, though… I’m sorry. I think Itachi wanted to apologize as well. He might come here soon.”

The jerky falls out of Kakashi’s mouth, and Iruka sighs as though put upon and takes it back; there’s the sharp noise of dried meat fibers snapping, a pause, then lips on his, coaxing his mouth open to push chewed meat in. _Like feeding a pup_ , Kakashi thinks, and is too tired to be embarrassed.

“So the strange one is alive,” a low voice says later; Kakashi wakes up with a small start.

They’re still wherever they were, and Iruka is still beside him, so he must not have been asleep too long; he can feel Iruka’s attention turn towards the source of the voice and, strangely, his dogs uncurl as well, shifting or rolling into submissive positions.

“Rise, far cousins,” the voice says, and Kakashi forces his eye open at that, a vague current of alarm coursing through him.

His eye meets the gaze of a massive white wolf leaning over him; it considers him with an amused sort of tolerance in its ancient gaze.

“Hiruzen,” Kakashi manages. The wolf’s eyes half-lid, its maw opening a fraction, ears flicking.

“Correct, stranger. Your name?”

“Kakashi. Formerly Hatake Kakashi.”

“Ahh… yes. That would explain it.” His gaze shifts to the pack. “Your kin grow small and weak, but their minds are still sharp and lightning still flickers at their paws. I am surprised--and gratified--to meet one such as yours before my death. It gives me a small glint of hope for the world I will leave behind.”

Pakkun makes a chuffing noise and curls back up next to Kakashi; the rest of the pack follows and cluster around him as eight extremely warm lumps. Kakashi’s throat feels a little tight; they’re really comforting.

Kakashi lets his eye close again, attention wavering. Iruka and Hiruzen talk for a while, their words indistinct to him (though he thinks he hears ‘heavens’ fields’ once) before they fall silent. He drifts for a while, enjoying the silence, until the rustle of feathers brings his attention back to his surroundings.

“I didn’t believe it when I heard,” something says, voice cold and biting; a shadow falls over Kakashi’s face, and he feels Iruka tense near him.

He forces his eye open (feeling mildly disgruntled at this point; he just wants to sleep) to find a massive eagle looming over him this time. On a second glance, it’s not that old or large; Obito had been twice as tall and had had different-colored plumage. A juvenile, then?

It cocks his head at him, ruffling its feathers up large. “A filthy human with a sharingan--who did you have to slaughter for the _honor_ of bearing it?” Its voice confirms it, too mature to be a child but too young to be an adult, distinctly male despite that. It’s also _dripping_ with sarcasm and poorly-concealed hostility. “Well?? Speak! _Tell me or I’ll tear out your throat_!”

“Sasuke!” Iruka’s voice snaps through the air on the end of the eagle’s screech and makes the juvenile flinch; Kakashi watches in mild astonishment as he withdraws into himself, feathers flattening. His dogs stop growling so loudly, too, though Uhei and Shiba’s chests still rumble almost soundlessly against him.

“Sasuke. Come here.” A new voice, also male; the young eagle waddles awkwardly out of Kakashi’s line of sight, clumsy on the ground. Iruka gets up from where he’s sitting as well, following him off. There’s a small pause, then another eagle leans over him, head tilting to one side to fasten a red eye on his face. Three tomoe revolve within the iris, lazily entrancing.

“My apologies for my brother. He grieves angrily, with rage close to his heart.” Its tan and white feathers ruffle up then smooth; the red of its eye fades until there’s nothing but smooth black. “You bear Obito’s eye--I recognize his mangekyo sharingan. Please… if you would, tell me what happened.”

“Ah.” Kakashi lets his eye close; he doesn’t have enough strength right now to think and talk and keep it open at the same time. He tells his tale to the eagle in fits and bursts, often doubling back on his narrative to add details, too tired to order his thoughts: he speaks of his fight against Obito and his journey west and all the things he’s seen.

“The sharingan is a blessing and damnation both,” Itachi says (and it must be Itachi; Kakashi remembered Iruka saying his name), head bowing. “I thank you for your kindness and patience in bearing my kinsman’s curse and in ending his wretched life so quickly. I am grieved that such a demon could have come from my clan and that you have been so affected.”

“You can’t remove it, can you?”

“No.” He sounds genuinely remorseful. “If any of the elders of my clan had survived…”

 

Kakashi’s eye snaps open. “What?”

Itachi’s head tilts again, regarding him curiously. “You did not know? Sasuke and I are the last of our clan. The rest of us are dead, fallen to the weapons of man.”

“How--” Kakashi frowns. “Minato--the lord of Irontown, he said that he only drove the eagles into the mountains, that very few of you were hurt.”

“Men lie.”

“No, he--he wouldn’t about something like this--” Urgency makes him struggle to his elbows, propping his torso up; the effort leaves him breathless and with his head swimming. “--have to--something’s not right--”

A gentle, massive, taloned foot pushes him back down to the moss; Itachi’s voice is calm, though there’s the barest hint of urgency below it.

“Rest. Don’t harm yourself. Your words bear merit, but you cannot return now--your chakra is dangerously low. The Forest God may have blessed you with life, but it cost your body dearly. My kin will not rise from death merely because you unraveled this inconsistency. Rest. Recover. _Sleep_.”

Kakashi drowns in red and the swirl of tomoe--and, for once, the color is comforting, the glow of the sky at sunset instead of the flow of blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Itachi and Sasuke are Mountain Hawk-Eagles, specifically the Japanese subspecies. uvu/


	12. Chapter 12

Kakashi sleeps long and deep and, for once, he doesn’t dream.

He wakes now and then, usually to darkness, and falls back under soon afterwards; he carries the impression of vast words, heavy and ponderous like the weight of the world, warm brown eyes, and a comforting smile back with him into the stillness of slumber.

Sometimes he remembers the golden ripple of laughter that the Forest God had made, but that’s strange in its own way, because he’s fairly sure the Forest God should only be near its stepping stones.

Sometimes his heart beats so strong in his chest that he’s afraid it will burst, and he feels the encroachment of green growing things within his veins and recognizes that as his end; when he dies, the forest will claim him and his grave will be unmarked by stone. And that’s fine--he’s already dead, right?

(Maybe it’s that his dreams are as confusing as his reality and that, in his exhaustion, he mixes the two together until memories and reality and dreams become the same. But of course, this analysis is beyond him right now.)

Eventually, he does wake, and his head is clear.

It’s day. He’s fairly comfortable; he turns his head, eye open, and takes in the sight of bare stone walls. He’s lying on a bed of leaves and furs with more pelts atop him, and four of his eight dogs are curled around him.

“... huh,” he says eventually and tests his limbs by lifting a hand to flop it on Urushi’s back, scratching his hackles. The dog’s tail starts wagging, which makes all four of them wake up and pay attention to him; they greet him with muted yips and barks and an overabundance of wet noses. Kakashi laughs and scratches behind a lot of ears in apology.

“Where are the others?” he asks them. “And how long have I been asleep?”

Bull helps him sit up, then cocks his ear towards the mouth of the cave--no, den, rather, a proper den for wolves of the clan’s size--before wriggling until he’s under Kakashi’s arm, tucked ridiculously up by his side like the smallest black-furred mountain. It had been a position he’d been fond of back when he was a puppy and could actually fit in the mild curve of Kakashi’s waist. He was still pretty fond of it, but Kakashi didn’t fit nearly as well anymore; he drapes his arm over the dog’s shoulders anyway.

“Outside, huh? I guess they’re hunting with the wolf clan?”

Guruko yaps, and Kakashi’s eyebrows go up.

“ _Helping_ them hunt? Good heavens, that’s kind of them. Why?”

Guruko makes a chuffing noise and opens his mouth so his tongue can loll out; Kakashi rolls his eye.

“Don’t give me that crap about ‘the milk of human kindness’; it’s still not funny no matter how many times you make that joke.”

Guruko starts to cock his ears, then yelps as Urushi nips him; the two degenerate into scuffling. Shiba’s the one that barks at Kakashi, finally giving him an answer.

“Oh, right. Minato did mention that.”

Urushi and Guruko growl in unison; Kakashi reaches over to swat them.

“Be polite. He’s doing pretty well for a human without a pack of furballs following him around all the time, reminding him of this and that.”

“I tend to agree with the far cousins. You speak so highly of this lord, but he’s done nothing to preserve the land,” says a female voice from the mouth of the den; Kakashi looks up to meet the red gaze of another wolf standing there, staring in at him.

“Kurenai,” Kakashi says and drops his head into a nod; she settles on her haunches and continues to stare.

“Tell me, strange one. What is so good about this human lord that would cause you to speak so kindly of him, even seeing what he has done to the forest?” she says, and Kakashi sighs to himself.

“He’s just lost the old ways. Perhaps someone in his family had meant to teach them to him when he’d reached the appropriate age, perhaps all of his family had forgotten, but he is merely determined, not malicious. He sees the humans of Irontown as his family and the forge and metal he produces as a means to an end--he speaks respectfully of your clan and the eagles and regrets the damage that he’s done. If he felt he had another way, I believe he’d take it.”

“Then you should teach him.”

Kakashi shakes his head. “Respectfully, Lady Wolf, I cannot. My own clan has lost too many of the old ways--we die slowly, failing against the will of the rest of the humans. That was why we hid in the first place--we'd lost too many of the great ones to the blades of war and to simple human greed. Their secrets died with them; all we have now are the kin you call cousins and the lightning from the clouds. Maybe not even that, now… I was the last of the hunters’ line and now I am dead to my own people. I cannot teach the lord the old ways--his family wielded warding seals like breathing. Even the simplest scroll in his family’s library was closed with something beyond my small abilities.”

Kurenai makes a growling, snarling noise and rises to her feet again. “Then _what use are you_ , stranger? You rest in Iruka’s den; you take his attention; you cover his scent with your own--you’ll steal him, the second of Hiruzen’s sons--away from us to, what? Make him _human_? He’s no more human than _you_ are, _dead prince_.”

His dogs shoot to their feet, snarling at Kurenai; Kakashi silences them with a barked command and they settle again sullenly. He stares levelly at Kurenai.

“Lady Wolf, I merely seek to answer the questions that have arisen in my journey, to see the fight with eyes unclouded before I die. As for Iruka, well… he is his own creature--he is capable of making his own choices.”

Kurenai snarls once more, hackles rising, but leaves abruptly, turning and disappearing from the mouth of the cave. Silence reigns for a few long moments, the normal sounds of the forest slowly filtering back in to them, before Guruko breaks it with a sneeze.

“Don’t be rude,” Kakashi says absently, eye still fixed on the mouth of the den. “She’s just scared. I wouldn’t want to bring a child into a world like this either.”

“Kakashi?”

All the dogs sit up at Iruka’s voice, and Kakashi has enough time to brace himself on Bull before the rest of the pack barrels in and bowls him over. “Easy, easy, I’m still fragile! Have mercy!” he manages, and the pack backs off (eventually), tails wagging fast, to reveal Iruka smiling at them.

(Kakashi denies the little sappy flip his heart does at the expression, but it’s a pretty thin defense to be honest.)

“You really are strange,” Iruka says, and Kakashi shrugs as he checks his dogs over, running fingers through their fur and looking into their eyes, reassuring them (and himself) that they were all in one piece. “How do you feel?”

“Well enough. Not going to be running miles anytime soon, but I’m not the consistency of frog eggs anymore.” Kakashi glances up as Asuma ghosts into view behind Iruka, an entire deer held in his maw by the neck; he sniffs the air once, flicks his ears at Iruka, and disappears again. _He’s probably going to check on his mate_ , Kakashi thinks absently, before adding, “What’s up with the smile? I wouldn’t have thought three solid days of me being asleep would have been enough to endear me to you.”

“Well, _you_ certainly weren’t doing much more than snoring, but your _pack_ spent the entire time telling me stories about you.” Iruka’s smile grows and makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. “They told me about the time with the geese.”

Kakashi stares at him for a moment before wheeling on his dogs, glaring mightily at them. “You traitors! I thought we agreed to never talk about that ever again!”

He plays up his indignation as the pack and Iruka laugh, and the sound warms his heart. Yes. This is something he’s willing to fight for. His decision has been made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Kakashi is actually talking to the dogs; there is an explanation for this! It coincides with the wolves using 'far cousins', addressing Kakashi as 'strange one', and the many, many references to being human, but I've dropped hints about the bigger picture in previous chapters. And it will be fully explained in the narrative at... some point. Probably near the end of the story tbh, sorry :"D But it'll get in there!
> 
> Also I realize Kakashi spends a lot of time unconscious; I swear I'm just following the skeleton plot of the movie--Ashitaka actually does pass out about that many times (sans the first first one, I think, but there's a cut there so it's hard to say).


	13. Chapter 13

“Hiruzen told me about your people,” Iruka says later.

Kakashi looks up from his bowl. “Oh?”

The small, smokeless fire between them shifts the light on Iruka’s face as he nods. “Hiruzen is very wise… he knows so much. He remembers the days when humans and the gods lived together in peace--and sometimes intermingled. He remembers your people.” Iruka pauses, lifts a hand to rub at the scar on his face. “... I’m a little envious. Why would you ever help the Irontown humans if you could run free here?”

Kakashi finishes chewing the bite of stew he’d been working on, and then lowers his bowl and chopsticks. “Some of my people did. They left the village and never returned and ran free amongst the trees and kodama like they’d never been human. They made their own families and lives out there, apart from us… but they shared our blood and so protected us still, the same as all the warriors of my people. We called them the guardians, the walking ghosts.” He pauses, lets the memories fill him. “On calm nights you could hear them howling.”

“But you never wanted to.” Iruka’s eyes are fixed on him, fascinatingly intense.

“No. I had…” How could he explain this to a man who’d been raised as a wolf, who didn’t have the same concept of duty? “I had two packs--them--” and here he tilts his head to the side to where the dogs are sprawled out in one big, lazy pile “--and the village. I couldn’t go, not if I knew that it would leave them vulnerable.”

“But you did.” And a spasm of emotion crosses Iruka’s face, something sad and dismayed. “... you can never go back?”

“Would you accept one of the eagles back if they rose from the earth to fly again now?”

“They wouldn’t do that--Itachi burnt all those that he could find with chakra flame. The forest smelled like ashes and acrid feathers for days, and we mourned for as long as the scent remained,” Iruka replies automatically. Then he wrinkles his nose, making his scar bunch up. “But I see your point.”

“Fire chakra?” Kakashi asks with curiosity.

“He did this thing--his chakra made shapes in steps, like building a nest, and the end shape was bigger than all the parts it was made of--and became fire when he let it fly.” He notices Kakashi’s incredulous expression. “What?” he says defensively. “That’s what he does.”

Kakashi holds up a hand placatingly. “No, no, I believe you. I’m just surprised--I can’t do that, you know, tell the shapes of people’s chakra, but our holy woman and a friend of mine could, a little. It’s a rare talent.” Iruka looks slightly mollified, but still peeved, so Kakashi adds, “Who taught you? Hiruzen?”

The grouchiness disappears from Iruka’s face in an instant. “Yes! Hiruzen started teaching me early--I can’t do as much as brother Asuma, but I can make up the difference with chakra.”

Kakashi nods slowly, absorbing this new information. “When did he start?”

“I don’t know.” Iruka picks at the pelt draped over his shoulders, running his fingers through the fur. “A long time ago. I was really small. Hiruzen and Asuma say I was a terror though, when I learned how to stick to trees.” A grin brightens his face, and Kakashi can almost feel his heart melt in his chest.

He goes back to eating to occupy his face, and it’s quiet and peaceful in the den until Iruka breaks the silence again.

“The lord of Irontwon likes you. You can use that to kill him, and then the forest would be okay.”

The blood goes cold in Kakashi’s veins, and, slowly, he puts down his bowl, lays his chopsticks over it, and clenches his fists on his knees; he focuses on breathing evenly, in and out, and relaxing the muscles in his back that had tensed up at Iruka’s words.

Across the room, his dogs have woken up or raised their heads, reacting to his spike of chakra; Kakashi waves them off with a terse motion of his hand, and looks across the fire again to see Iruka staring at him, eyebrows furrowed slightly and his feet tucked under him, ready to fight or flee if Kakashi moves.

“... I made you angry,” he says.

Kakashi doesn’t even bother denying it. “Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s…” Kakashi rubs his face. “So much of this war could have been prevented with some patience or some talk. Decisive action has gotten us here; more death isn’t going to fix this.”

Iruka’s eyes stay on him for long moments more before they skitter away; then, with a huff, he turns where he sits, collapsing on his side with his back to the fire, curling up. Kakashi rolls his eye at that, seeing the nonverbal insult for what it is, but keeps quiet and picks up his bowl again.

He’ll talk to Hiruzen later. There are still too many variables.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now imagine someone with Iruka's temper sans the love for humans he has in canon :"D


	14. Chapter 14

Kakashi spends the next day testing his strength. His long rest has diminished him, weakened his limbs, but he can already tell that it won’t be permanent--enough movement and he’ll be just as he was.

Itachi had been right, though--the Forest God had drained him of his chakra to heal his wound; that, more than anything else, will take the longest to recover from.

Iruka spends the day giving him cautious, sidelong glances every time he passes near him, and Kakashi is torn between apologizing to him for their half-argument last night and reminding himself his words had been true. He knows what Iruka’s doing; he’s testing his dominance, trying to find Kakashi’s place in the pack. If he gives in to those soulful brown eyes, he’ll only look weak.

So Kakashi mostly ignores him, replying politely to questions in conversation if required and declining the offer of hunting with Iruka and Asuma, and takes a nap in the den after he’s finished some rudimentary kata. He cooks one of the rabbits Iruka and Asuma bring back for lunch, takes a bath to rid himself of the last of the smoke-scent of Irontown and to thoroughly clean himself off. Three days of sleeping followed up by exercise don’t make for a comfortable existence in his disgusting clothes, and he gives them a wash as well while he’s in the pool. They’ll dry fast enough in the mid-afternoon heat.

(The marks of Obito’s curse have migrated to the slope of his shoulder and the front of his collarbone; he ignores them and probes the knotted, neat, white scar that the Forest God has made of the wound in his chest instead.)

Dinner is grilled fish (also from the pool) and wild vegetables from the forest. Kakashi gathers his thoughts afterwards and ventures back out into the night, seeking Hiruzen.

He finds both him and Itachi, the former lounging on a high, flat rock still warm from the day’s sunlight and the latter clinging to an outcropping beside him. They look like they’ve been there like this since the beginning of the world, _and_ , Kakashi thinks, _that’s certainly possible_. He makes no attempt to move quietly, and Hiruzen rumbles, “Come sit down, strange one” to him when he comes within hearing range.

Kakashi sits crosslegged beside both and turns his gaze outwards, admiring the vast, moonlight-dewed expanse of the forest spread before their perch. They’re high enough that the bowl of the sky stretches above them, horizon to horizon when it’s unbroken by mountains, and the trees below them form a verdant mass, the leaves looking as soft as clouds in the night.

“I would give much to see it again,” Itachi says wistfully; he ruffles his feathers and clacks his beak in amusement when Kakashi startles. “Surprised you, hm? Yes, I am blind. It is part of the blessing and the curse--we see so sharply, but pay the price for the sharingan in our own sight. I cannot see with solely my eyes anymore. Though there’s no need to fear for yourself, strange one--the sharingan will always reveal the truth for those who know where to look.”

“That is a comforting thought, but I’m afraid I must be more concerned with the progression of Obito’s curse at the moment,” Kakashi replies politely.

Itachi subsides, ruffling and flattening his feathers once more. “A fair point.”

“You have questions,” Hiruzen says; Kakashi refocuses on him. “Ask them, and we will see what light we can shed upon your journey for truth.”

Kakashi stares out over the trees as he organizes his thoughts; far in the distance, he thinks he can see the vast shape of the Forest God, walking the night.

“Neither side thought to speak to the other, did they?” he finally asks.

“No. And why would we?” Hiruzen’s maw opens and his lips peel back, exposing massive white teeth. “They cut down the trees and drove away the eagles--only to slaughter them in their eyries. They foul the water and fill the air with noxious scents--why would we speak to each other when so much life has been lost already? The humans of Irontown have made their intentions quite clear. The iron bullet I still bear in my chest is evidence enough.” He subsides, voice growing softer. “It will kill me, but I will contemplate my end in peace and face my death with dignity. I only wish that I could repay that miserable lord back before I go. No. We will not speak to each other, the wolves and the humans. There has been too much death for pretty words.”

Kakashi continues looking out at the forest. “The eagles--did anyone see who it was?”

“Human riflemen,” Itachi answers. “Dressed in white and red, Sasuke said. We burnt many, but too many died without even waking from their sleep… in the end, it was all I could do to save my little brother.”

Kakashi inclines his head. “I am truly sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. Small words, but accepted all the same.”

“The fire chakra… would you show me? Iruka said that you made shapes…”

Itachi tilts his head in Kakashi’s direction curiously, but says only, “Watch with Obito’s eye, then--you will never forget if you use the sharingan.”

The eye seems to agree with its kin; it twinges in Kakashi’s skull and claws at his chakra when he uncovers and opens it, the world dissolving into red and silver brightness. Kakashi squints against the luminescence of the gods and focuses on Itachi; the core of the eagle shifts and morphs from one shape to another, building on each in quick succession (much like the building of a nest Iruka had compared it to) and releases its tension in its final form as flame, gouting brilliant and hot from Itachi’s beak, breaking the stillness of the night with the boom of air rapidly expanding.

Kakashi shuts the eye and sways in place as the amount of chakra it had used becomes apparent to him; still, he manages a mild, “Thank you” for Itachi. His next question is directed at Hiruzen. “Iruka. You were the one to teach him chakra manipulation?”

“Yes. I well remember what you call the old ways and passed on those that best suited my son.”

“You truly consider him your son?”

“And what else would he be? Years ago, a group of bandits slaughtered a man and a woman within the forest; when they saw me, they threw the child they were about to destroy at my feet, begging me to spare their lives.” Hiruzen’s lips curl again. “The child clung to my feet and wept as only the heartbroken innocent can, unafraid of me. I killed and ate the bandits and took the child as my own. My weak, hairless, _powerful_ son may be no more man than beast--but he has a place here.” Kakashi feels Hiruzen’s stare against his skin, but refuses to turn to look at him, refuses to meet his threat just yet. “I know of your regard for him, strange one--what could you give him in exchange for his loss of a _home_?”

And at that, Kakashi does turn, meeting the great wolf’s eyes with his one, gaze steady and fearless despite the danger and insult he offers: “I seek to give him peace and an end to this senseless war.”

 

And Hiruzen stares unblinking at him for one moment, then two, his nigh-inaudible growl rumbling through the stone beneath them--before throwing back his head and _laughing_ , maw stretched wide and lips pulled back. “ _Peace_? You have insolence and bravery in equal measure, strange one--take care that it doesn’t create your end!” His booming laughter tapers into silence, and he lowers his head to pin his stare again on Kakashi. “Peace indeed--were you a human, I would eat you for offering such insult. But you’re as much animal as my own son--and his tongue is as sharp as yours. Go, then, and find peace. If you manage to hunt down such a prize, you may well be worthy of my son’s hand.”

Kakashi stands and bows then, once to Itachi and once to Hiruzen, and retraces his path back down the rocks, leaving the two gods in their repose over the forest. The eyes of his pack glint eerily green at him with reflected moonlight when he steps back into Iruka’s den, waking them from slumber.

“It’s fine; look, I’m all in one piece. No bites out of me at all,” he murmurs to them; he gets a smattering of reluctantly wagging tails. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep. Hiruzen won’t lay tooth on me just yet.”

Iruka stirs when Kakashi lies down on the pelts beside him; his face scrunches up and his eyes open, blearily looking Kakashi over as he settles.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Kakashi whispers to him; Iruka makes a face and sighs as though calling him a fool for approaching Irontown again.

“You made my father laugh,” he says instead; yawning, he puts his face back in his arms, curling up once more. “I haven’t heard that laugh in a very long time…”

“Well. I was just glad to get away with all my limbs.”

Iruka laughs. “If he wished you dead, you would be already.” Then he stops, silent for such a long time that Kakashi thinks he’s fallen back asleep.

“I’m sorry,” Iruka says instead (though he doesn’t move his face from where he’s hiding), “for making you angry last night. And for testing you today. Your pack was rather mad at me,” he adds ruefully. “They explained while you weren’t around. I’m not… used to thinking of humans in the way you do.”

“I should apologize, too,” Kakashi says to the cave ceiling, “about getting mad over what you said--but apologizing for an honest emotion seems a bit silly.”

“You’re forgiven,” Iruka says dryly; Kakashi turns his head to meet the single brown eye Iruka has uncovered, looking back at him. There’s amusement in the gleam of it, a sort of wicked, mischievous happiness.

“You are, too,” Kakashi says back.

Iruka wriggles happily in the leaves and pelts, rolling over a few times before curling back up into a ball facing Kakashi, apparently really to sleep this time.

“Goodnight, Iruka.”

“Goodnight Kakashi,” Iruka mumbles, already on the cusp of slumber “… I wish… that you wanted to stay here with us… but it’s still good to have met you at all….”

_I’ll miss you, too_ , Kakashi thinks before sleep takes him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT, EVERYONE; i got really caught up in 'notes' for a while /apologizes profusely!

Sunlight and the chirps of birds wake him; Kakashi listens with his eyes closed for a moment before sitting up and stretching. Iruka is gone from beside him, though the hollow he’d left in the furs is still warm, and his pack is starting to wake up as well. Those most coherent yap and stare at him, ears cocked, waiting for instructions, and Kakashi yawns insolently at them before standing.

“Get everyone ready to go,” he says to Pakkun. “We leave as soon as I get back from washing my face.”

The dog chuffs irritably at him but barks at the others as Kakashi exits the den and makes his way down to the bathing pool; he washes efficiently, pulls his mask and bandages back on, and checks the gear on him before making his way back up.

His pack meets him at the front of the den, awake, if not entirely alert; Kakashi collects the last of his weapons, finds a few leaf-wrapped parcels of food amongst them (doesn’t bother to hide his smile), and leads the lot of them out into the trees towards Irontown.

He hasn’t seen hide nor hair of any of the wolf clan and isn’t really surprised; he _can_ , however, feel eyes on him and sometimes catch a flicker of movement shadowing him through the trees. Kakashi knows it’s Iruka, can smell him, but doesn’t acknowledge him as he and his pack travel; by declaring himself neutral, unwilling to fight for the forest either, he’s placed himself firmly back into the status of an unknown. At this moment in time, Iruka is acting as one of those from the woods, taking a position as their sentry--he shadows Kakashi’s path to ensure that he does not betray them. Kakashi is sure that if he had not been what he was, one of the cloudwalkers, that he would have had an icier reception and escort; the only thing keeping him from leaving the forest at the end of a spear is his former people’s knowledge of the old ways.

Despite that, despite the danger he could be going back into, and despite the increasing tension of war in the air on the way to Irontown, Kakashi still pauses at the edge of the forest, his dogs milling around him as he casts his eye to the trees and reaches in his shirt.

“I refuse to let this be a goodbye,” Kakashi calls to the branches. The laughing rattle of kodama answer him, and he smiles as he pulls Rin’s dagger from around his neck, letting its red cord slide through his fingers until it hangs at the end of its length, pendulous. “So I won’t say goodbye.” He pulls at Obito’s eye within himself and feels the drain in his chakra; he scans the trees in brief and starts Rin’s dagger spinning like the weighted end of his sickle-chain. He finds what he’s looking for, pulls his energy away from the eagle’s blessing-curse, and lets the dagger slip from his fingers in a lazily arced toss, soaring up towards the branches--to be snapped out of the air by a tanned hand.

“Instead, I’ll say ‘see you later.’ Keep that dagger for me, will you? It belonged to a very dear friend of mine, and it was her most-precious treasure. I’ll reclaim it when I return.”

There’s a moment of hesitation--but the tanned hand, Iruka’s hand, withdraws back into the greenery, Rin’s dagger being treated reverently, and Kakashi turns away, stepping back onto human lands without waiting for a reply that may or may not come.

\--

He hears the first screams and sounds of battle long before Irontown itself comes into sight, and it contracts Kakashi’s heart in his chest in fear; he pushes himself and the pack harder and finds the town under siege.

_Lord Kaguya’s men_ , his mind supplies him as his eye flicks over the forms swarming the walls of the town. He’s not sure how he’s going to get in at this point; he can’t exactly waltz in through the front gate anymore.

Luckily, he’s spotted and recognized before he has to resort to drastic measures; as he approaches the town from the east, on the blind side of the attacker's forces, a window within the vast wooden wall slides open. Kushina pushes her head through, shouting a greeting down at him, tattered, a smudge of gunpowder on her cheek, but brilliantly alive.

Kakashi comes to a stop close enough to the wall to still hear, but far enough away that he spares his neck from craning too hard to see her face; he cups his hands around his mouth and yells back.

“Lady Kushina--where is Lord Minato? I need to speak with him. It’s urgent!”

“He’s not here! That’s why Kaguya’s men attacked, the bastards--my husband went off with Danzo and the riflemen to hunt down the Forest God! They left earlier today!”

Kakashi’s eye widens, and his stomach plummets. Shimura Danzo? _Here?_ He well-remembers the man and the nameless ‘weapon’ at his side--his presence here bodes ill. “Lady Kushina--in what color do the riflemen dress? And are they the same men that assisted in driving the eagles away?”

He can almost see Kushina’s confusion; she leans further to one side as a Hyuuga (Hizashi? Hiashi?) extends a rifle out of the window she’s using, aiming and firing by hearing alone; Kakashi doesn’t have to look at the battlefield to see the damage the man’s aim does--the wails of pain are enough. Instead, Kakashi’s every fiber hangs on to the lady’s words and the gentle furrow of her eyebrows.

“White and red, Kakashi--and of course. But why--?”

He curses, long and loud, and his dogs start baying around him, howling their anger to the skies; he turns on his heel and gathers his energy to run, hastily calling over his shoulder, “My thanks, Lady Kushina! I will attempt to inform Minato that Irontown is under siege!”

“Thank you!” she calls back at him; Kakashi turns his face away, back to the forest, and blocks out the rest of the world--the man that slaughtered the eagles and deceived both sides and started this stupid, foolish war is journeying to the heart of the forest, the God’s stepping stones.

Shimura Danzo and his riflemen killed the Uchiha, and all of them, man and beast, will be in danger if he’s allowed to take the Forest God’s head.

Grimly, Kakashi runs and hopes he will not be too late.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let the destruction cascade begin! >:V

The forest is too quiet around him and it prickles the back of his neck and makes the dogs growl low in their throats--he agrees with them. Something is wrong, terribly wrong, and the forest has withdrawn in on itself, pulling its smaller lives close in the protective gloom to try and preserve itself.

Kakashi doesn’t see a single kodama, and that just rings the final death knell on his suspicions.

“Pakkun--track the way to the god’s stepping stones. We need to get there--now.”

The dog chuffs and, for once, doesn’t complain; he puts his nose to the ground and leads them deeper into the trees. Kakashi wonders where the wolves and eagles are, if they intend to meet the threat head-on, or if they will wait and strike from the shadows.

He finds out--the groups converge at the god’s stepping stones at the same time. Kakashi breaks through the brush and tree cover on the western side to find the Irontown contingent facing the wolf clan over the patch of moss he’d lain on not so many days ago.

Everything is still, holding their breath.

Kakashi takes in the situation with a flick of his eyes; Hiruzen, now standing, reveals himself as diminished, eaten away by the iron within him. Asuma and Iruka stand firm at his shoulders, their teeth bared. Minato leads the riflemen, arranged through the trees behind him in a fan, and at his right side stands Danzo, his weapon before him; at the lord’s left is Gai. The two groups stare at each other, tension crackling upon the air, both waiting for the other to move.

“Lord Minato!”

Kakashi’s voice breaks the stillness, and he feels the weight of the attention of all the assembled land squarely on him; he straightens his shoulders and stands firm, tall, underneath it.

“ _Kakashi?_ ” the lord calls back incredulously. “Is that really you? We thought you dead--”

“I was spared by the very god you came here to kill. Minato, Irontown is under siege--Lord Kaguya’s men have the town under assault! Kushina’s ladies and the Hyuuga are holding them back, but they cannot sustain their level of resistance--they will be overrun.”

“ _What?_ ” Minato’s eyes go wide, and Kakashi sees desperation and fear enter his eyes at the news. He whirls to Shimura, who is standing and staring straight at Kakashi with his uncovered eye, unmoving. ”Danzo, we must go back _now_. We'll be able to meet Kaguya's forces in the field and take them by surprise before the sun sets; the riflemen will be needed to support Irontown--”

“No,” the man replies, never moving, and his words fall like stones into the sudden silence of the clearing, echoing the movement of the last rays from the setting sun.

The lord goggles at him, shoulders going stiff. “... No--?”

“No. We have come this far, Minato--I will not be stopped now, when our goal is in reach. Irontown can be rebuilt, but this will be the best chance we have to slay the Forest God. I will not let you leave now because Kayuga’s men are chipping away at your defenses.” Danzo's voice never changes inflection, never gains emotion, just delivers his words flatly, uncaring.

Minato seems to grow with rage, fingers clenching on the rifle in his hands; beside him, Gai shifts into a readier stance, which is echoed by Danzo’s weapon. “It’s _you_ that’s mistaken--the only reason you’ve made it this far into the woods is because of me--the Forest God will still be here the next day and the next after that. Irontown is not so permanent!”

For the first time since Kakashi’s appearance, Danzo turns to look at Minato, sharply turning his head to cast his eye upon him. “So. You are decided?”

Minato’s chin rises and in that instant, he looks every inch a lord, powerful and authoritative. “Of course.”

“I should have known your resolve would fail at such a crucial moment. A pity.”

And no-one in the clearing has time to move before Danzo blurs in motion, striking the lord down with the side of his hand--slamming it hard against Minato’s neck in a flickeringly quick motion and snapping its length into an unnatural shape with an audible, sick _crunch_.

 

Minato drops as dead weight and cacophony breaks out over the clearing; Gai lurches forward, posture staggering and shocked, only to be restrained by Danzo’s servant, the two freezing in place like a horrible tableau as the knives in the boy’s hands rest at Gai’s neck. The unarmed warrior weeps openly, eyes fixed upon the still form of his lord on the moss.

The riflemen have leveled their weapons at the wolf clan, who have tensed but are still again, a few feet closer to Danzo's forces and fur newly bristling but pinned down by the threat; Kakashi has a few on him as well. He grits his teeth behind his mask and clenches his fists and waits, eye flicking between Danzo, the wolves, and the pool.

“A pity,” the man repeats; he carelessly kicks the lord’s body away from the rifle he’d been holding, bending to pick it up himself. “What a waste of potential.” He hefts the weapon in his hands and sighs as though mildly inconvenienced.

“You,” Hiruzen growls; Danzo’s eye flicks toward the god, but he remains as he is otherwise, waiting facing the pool. “You would betray the man who considered you his ally merely for an opportunity at destruction? Even a human does not deserve such a fate.”

“He lacked conviction. And vision. We will be rid of beasts like you in this moment, and humanity will flourish as they conquer the land. All I seek is prosperity for us as a species--it’s not such an ignoble goal.”

“He killed the eagles, Hiruzen,” Kakashi calls out, and he can hear the hatred in his voice, the pull at his chakra by Obito’s eye. “Minato had no knowledge of the act.  He’d wanted safety, not death. Danzo and his men were the ones to track the Uchiha back to their eyries and slaughter them in their slumber.”

The wolves growl at that, Hiruzen’s deep and loud enough to shiver the leaves on the branches.

“How could anyone even call you human anymore?” Iruka snarls. “You’re nothing but corruption and cruelty!”

“Needs must, little prince. Of course I call myself a man--for only men have power enough to slay the very gods.” He raises Minato’s weapon to his shoulder and gives one last order to his men. “Kill them all if they interfere.”

 

The Forest God appears on the first stepping stone like a restless ghost; one moment it’s not, the next, it is. It regards the assembled with its green forward eyes, the silver closed, surveying them all dispassionately before stepping out upon the water’s surface as though it were solid land. Its presence demands attention, and all still as it approaches the shore, its passage utterly, eerily quiet.

The report of Danzo’s rifle is loud enough to shock; Iruka and Asuma, his dogs, and Gai flinch, but Hiruzen and Kakashi only have eyes for the shot’s path--it breaks straight through the Forest God’s head like bursting a melon, shattering bone with a wet cracking noise; weirdly green blood and matter fountain from the exit wound to spatter the water, disturbing the still surface.

The Forest God halts, begins to sink below the water, and Kakashi can feel the collective breath everyone takes as they wait to see if the inflicted wound proves fatal--and then its silver eyes open and its step back up onto the pool’s surface spreads golden-hued ripples of laughter across the water as it continues to walk.

It reaches land and turns its head from one side to another, all four eyes open now, its head delicate and whole, healed, upon its white-maned neck, and it slips between Asuma and Iruka to slowly lean forward and rest the tip of its muzzle against Hiruzen’s nose.

The wolf god’s eyes half-lid, and the Forest God withdraws and turns, silently pacing across the moss to where Minato’s body lies. The head of the wolf clan follows it, docile but thrumming with his inherent power, and Danzo and his men fall back before them, the weapon relinquishing his hold on Gai to retreat back to the trees. The unarmed man is the only one to not move, standing firm before the gods; he drops into a deep bow and does not move from it.

The Forest God lowers its head and lips gently at Minato’s golden hair; it raises it once again and turns to look over itself at Hiruzen behind it.

“Ah,” the wolf rumbles, and his eyes close. “I understand. Very well. I suppose this is protection in its own way.”

The Forest God ripples laughter, and the sound’s motion across the ground sprouts tender shoots from the moss; it turns in place and gently stretches out its neck and kisses the wolf on the tip of his nose, all four of its eyes closing in the ensuing silence.

 

And Hiruzen falls, the ground rattling with the impact of his slack body, utterly still in the Forst God's granted death.

Asuma and Iruka make twin noises of grief, but the Forest God doesn't react, moving instead once more to touch its muzzle against Minato’s head--and the lord coughs wetly, harshly, once before falling still again. Kakashi’s heart shudders in his chest in mingled sorrow and relief even as his mind races in confusion; the Forest God’s eyes catch on his for a moment as it turns to face the open canopy and starring sky, and a multitude passes between them in that fleeting contact, one thought managing to assert itself above the others:

_Live!_

Moonlight falls upon the God’s form, and it begins to shift, lengthen, stretch, the green eyes closing as the silver remain open--the light becomes the ripple of its mane and stars birth themselves within its night-kissed flesh, burning brilliant like the river of heaven above; it grows, silent, and loses solidity as it becomes the vast giant that walks the woods at night.

 

Danzo’s second shot strikes true, and it hits the Forest God high in its shifting neck; its four eyes snap wide in apparent surprise and fasten below even as its flesh bubbles and expands beyond the bounds of its intended form--to burst in a gory plume of red and gold blood and shatter the silence.

The head drops to the moss, landing with a hollow, sick, final thud, and everyone but Danzo is still, frozen in horror; the man darts forward, grabbing it by a diminishing horn and throwing it at his servant, who catches it and helps the riflemen quickly lock it within a metal container.

 

“Go!” Danzo barks, and begins to run, darting off into the trees; his men scramble to break their stupor and follow even as the body of the Forest God turns dark and grotesque on the shore, edges shifting and bulging uncertainly as all the stars within it extinguish themselves. It’s not so silent now--a low keening rises up from nothing, filling the air with a male’s voice, and intensifies in volume and rage until it’s a constant scream of agony, a howl of pain and loss that presses against the skin like a solid force; the beheaded god wails despair and betrayal for its separation and the masses of blood that pour from its wound stink like putrid decay and kill everything they touch. Waves of it engulf the trees, bleaching the trunks white and brittle, smothering those of Danzo’s men not quick enough in their reaction, and the small white bodies of kodama rain down from the dying boughs.

The blood flings itself aganst the canopy and around the pool, destroying all in its path without compunction or regard for forest or man, and the mass of the beheaded god shifts ponderously, turning towards Irontown and the path taken by Danzo and its head. 

“The water!” Kakashi roars; he snaps at his dogs and they obey with fear-fueled alacrity, splashing down into the pool of the stepping stones before the blood can reach them. Kakashi howls for Asuma and Iruka, and the eldest of the wolf clan lifts the younger by the pelt draped over his shoulders and flings them both into the water right before a blob of blood drops from the branches above onto the place where they'd been standing.

“Gai! The water!”

The unarmed man has his lord over his shoulder, protective and loyal even as all other paths of escape are cut off, and he obeys as though he’s placed his full trust in Kakashi, plunging in as well; Kakashi lingers on the shore but follows once he’s sure there’s no-one else he can save.

“The forest--” Asuma manages as Kakashi drags himself up the shore of the Forest God’s first stepping stone. Kakashi looks over his shoulder at the mass of the beheaded god streaming through and over the trees, gelatinous and horrifying as it kills everything in its path, and swallows nervously before turning back to more immediate problems.

“Asuma: Itachi and Sasuke?” he demands as he helps Gai lay Minato out on the moss; he tests the lord's pulse, listens to his heart, and chews his lip under his mask as his mind races. He knows little of the healing arts, and his focus is not acute enough for what the failing lord needs.

“The eagles are with Kurenai--”

“Good; the Forest God is heading in the opposite direction. Iruka, I need your help. Hiruzen taught you how to see with your chakra, right?” Iruka nods, pale enough to rival the scar across his nose but steady despite that. “Can you do that and maintain weapon-infusion at the same time?”

“Yes--yes, I--what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to sever Minato’s connection to the Forest God and anchor his crown, throat, and heart chakra before the Forest God’s slow death pulls him back under--it wasn’t done stabilizing him when Danzo took his shot." The knowledge falls from him unbidden, one more thing from the mass given to him. "Take Rin’s knife, focus your chakra through it, and open your sense--”

“No.”

“And--what?” Kakashi looks up in surprise, locking his gaze with Iruka's. “Iruka…?”

“I don’t _want_ to save him--he’s been fighting against us the entire time and he led that human-shaped _filth_ here. Why should I save him?” Iruka spits out, venom in his voice. He's standing as far away from the rest of them as he can, fists clenched tight at his sides and quivering with anger, face flushed red and teeth bared.

He looks terrified and furious all at once, and Kakashi breathes “Iruka…” even as he stands, pulling down his mask and walking slowly and carefully towards the other man, hands open and obvious by his sides. “Iruka, please…”

“Don’t say my name like that! I’m not a, a _human_ to be _coddled_ so--I’m a _wolf!_ I’m a wolf of the forest and, and--” Kakashi gently wraps arms around him, grunts faintly at the fists Iruka pounds against his chest, and exhales once, slow and gentle, when he snarls and buries his face against his shoulder and _sobs_.

“H-Hiruzen is dead," he chokes out. "The forest is dead. The Forest God is _dying_. What are we going to _do_? There’s nothing left for us.”

Kakashi holds him tight, turns his head to press his cheek against his hair, and pretends the world isn't ending around them. “But we’re still alive. Where there’s life, there’s hope--the Forest God told me to _live_. And I’m going to do that.” He dares to raise a hand and presses it against the first vertebrate of Iruka’s spine, fingers tracing the delicate knob below his skin. “And as long as I’m alive, I will fight.”

Iruka's shoulders shake and his fingers tighten in his shirt, gripping it tight, nails scratching his skin. “... you’re an idiot,” he mumbles against his skin thickly, which startles a laugh out of Kakashi. “What can you do? You’re just one person.”

“But I do have a plan.”

Iruka’s still for a long moment, as though listening to the crash of dying trees falling in the distance, then sighs and pulls away, unclenching his fists from the fabric of Kakashi’s shirt. Pakkun chuffs behind them, and Iruka says without looking up, “I think you’re right; it’s probably going to be a stupid plan.” Then he raises his hands and scrubs furiously at his tear-blotched face--before unlooping Rin’s dagger from around his neck and sending a ribbon of chakra down it, lighting it ablaze.

“Alright. Tell me what to do.”

Kakashi smiles at him and mouths, “Thank you”; Iruka gives him a watery smile back.

 

“Well, it’s fine,” Kakashi says half a minute later as he points out the spots on Minato Iruka has to hit, Obito's eye open and providing him with the information. “If your problem was just with him being human, he’s not quite one anymore.” He sees Gai’s head snap up in concern out of the corner of his eye; Kakashi uses a knife to slice open Minato’s shirt in unspoken response, uncovering the man’s chest for Iruka to access his heart chakra. It also exposes the seal spread over the man’s sternum; perfectly round, the lines of it are strong and black, yet oddly delicate, as though they'd been painted on by a calligraphy master--and have neither beginning nor end, tracing out an endless, complicated path around the man's skin and chakra.

Gai just looks confused and concerned; Asuma and his pack are audibly surprised.

“Knowledge?” Asuma says uncertainly as Iruka sits back; Kakashi quickly checks Minato’s breathing and heart before brushing his fingers against the back of Iruka’s hand in thanks. He gets a tired but triumphant smile in return before Iruka slips Rin’s dagger away, back around his own neck.

“It’s Hiruzen’s legacy, facilitated by the Forest God,” Kakashi says, and the words feel right on his tongue; he rubs his chest over where the rifle wound had been and remembers an echo of words: _a gift_.

“Asuma, Gai; Gai, Asuma. Introductions aside, Asuma, please take Gai and Minato back to the dens--and keep Kurenai and Sasuke from hurting them if you would. We need to catch Danzo and retrieve the Forest God’s head.” He finally turns his attention back to the trees and feels dismay twist heavy in his gut at their appearance, withered and sere. He wonders how far the damage extends and how much of the forest will be left at the end of this.

“You won’t be able to run fast enough--” Asuma starts, then stops, ears pointing forward at Kakashi in interest. “... _ah_. Good hunting then, far cousin. You have my promise of safety for these two.”

“Thank you, Asuma. Iruka,” he says as Asuma accepts his passengers and bounds away, deftly avoiding what’s left of the Forest God. The entire pack comes to sudden attention at the tone of his voice. “I think I’ll need your help. Will you come with me?”

Iruka stares at him, visibly unsure, then swallows and nods sharply, emotion crystalizing into determination. “Yes.”

Kakashi closes his eye for a moment, then stands and starts shedding weapons and clothes; he hands his bow and tanto to Iruka and leaves the rest, letting all but his gauntlet-gloves and his pants drop to the moss of the stepping stone, including the bandages around his head, his mask, and his geta. He won't be able to take anything much with him.

“Kakashi?”

He doesn’t glance down to see how far Obito’s curse has progressed; they don’t have time for that. “How much do you trust me, Iruka?” he asks as he steadies himself into a ready stance, reaching within himself to pull at his chakra; he contorts his fingers into the first of the series of seals that composes his family’s legacy, feeling his energy respond and shape itself as he concentrates and falls into the undertow of the rhythm.

“What--Kakashi?”

The second: he can feel his chakra welling bright underneath his skin and he can't stop after this point for the damage it will do. The knowledge of the hunt thrills him anyway, despite himself. “Iruka, please. Answer the question.”

“Kakashi, _what are you doing?_ ”

The third. The fourth. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck rises with the growing sequence and he can taste metal and sparks in the back of his throat along with the howl that threatens to rise from him; it takes almost all his focus to fight through the noise and the blind adrenaline to keep going, but he manages, “Iruka--” once more against the roar.

“Kakashi, _stop--!_ ” The fifth and sixth fall easily from his hands, but the crackle of energy across his skin is almost unbearable now, tangible as blue-white arcs that snap and scorch the moss where they leap out to sting and kiss the earth repeatedly; he inhales and the smells of the forest fill his mouth and nose, replete with green and animal and the almost-sweet stench of decaying plant matter as the beheaded god rampages.

“Iruka--” The seventh, and Iruka’s ponytail is starting to frizz, fraying from the tension and electricity in the air, and he looks like he wants to touch him, grab him, eyes wide and scared for him and what he's doing to himself, but the sense of inevitable energy is heavy and tangible in a singing aura all around them like the calm before the strike and the prince has never been a fool.

Kakashi sees his fists clench and his shoulders hunch and resolve bare his teeth sharp and gleaming in the blue-white light of the thunderstorm condensed.

 

“ _With all my heart!_ ” Iruka screams against the chirping of a thousand birds, and the eighth seal drops from his fingers as a smile brightens Kakashi’s face and the lightning in the air strikes him sharp where he stands.


	17. Chapter 17

_They called them the cloudwalkers._

Kakashi’s very breath crackles with electricity, lightning tamed at the tips of his fangs.

_Hiruzen remembers when the gods walked amongst humans--and intermingled with them._

He can sense the death all around him, the forest being ripped of its life, and he throws his head back and howls for his pack to be free.

_They say they bound the raiju to the forms of hounds and hunted at their sides._

Thunder answers his call, and between one roll and the next he feels their constraints lifted; his pack seethes around his feet as they’re freed, lightning at their heels and dissolving their flesh--they grin broadly, sparks flashing between their teeth.

_And when they were angered, they left nothing behind but the utter destruction of the storm._

“Ka--Kakashi?”

The god-sized, silver furred hound turns mismatched eyes to Iruka--and grins a stupid doggy grin, pleased with himself, tongue lolling, ears pointed at him, and tail wagging enthusiastically. Iruka cautiously holds out a hand towards him, wary of the blue-white sparks of electricity that crackle in his fur, and Kakashi closes the distance, pushing upwards against his fingers and chuffing happily.

“You’re going to shock me,” Iruka says weakly; Kakashi just pushes more insistently into his hand, leaning his shoulder on Iruka’s.

“Why do you think I asked if you trusted me?” Kakashi chuckles. “Climb on, Iruka--ride the storm’s front. We hunt the Forest God’s head and will run Danzo to the ground tonight!” His pack breaks out into joyful chatter at that, yelling to and at each other until Pakkun shouts at the lot of them to shut up and calm down. Kakashi ignores them with the ease of long practice, keeping mismatched red and gold eyes on Iruka, waiting, quietly straining at the leash for his decision.

The dying forest’s prince is still for a long moment and then a grin breaks his features, renders them sharp and fierce, and he seizes a handful of Kakashi’s fur and swings up onto his back, settling himself as though he'd ridden lightning condensed before. “Let’s _hunt_ ,” he calls out, and Kakashi _howls_ at his words, an eager bay that’s taken up by his pack and bolstered by Iruka’s own voice; thunder rolls overhead, the night dimming further with encroaching storm clouds that blot out the light from the stars.

 

They take off, loosed, at the first full flicker of lightning, traveling as quickly as the electricity; Kakashi and his pack flicker through the trees like ghosts, chasing the path of the beheaded Forest God and Danzo.

“How am I--?” Iruka manages; Kakashi can feel him gaping at the lightning arcing around them as they run through the forest at an incredible speed.

“It’s my heritage,” Kakashi says, and his laughter is the patter of rain on leaves around the crack-boom of their passage. “This is how those of my clan hunted and went to war--there were beings like my father, who fought with bow and blade dyed red in the blood of our enemies, and then there were those like my mother, who tore out their throats with their _teeth_.” He laughs again. “I took after her, in the end, though she died bearing me. We, my people, descended from the gods of thunder and lightning--the remnants of celestial blood linger in our veins and grant us a sliver of the first bearer’s power. He and she left the earth in the end, but bless us with our potential companions. The hunters with tooth and claw learn their second shapes and fight for their respect and the right to command them--one hound for each day in a gauntlet of war.”

“Gave us a good fight, too!” Uhei yips. The pack all laugh, and lightning crackles in the sound, sparks and overspills from their eyes in haunting trails of blue-white light.

Iruka’s hands tighten in Kakashi’s fur. “And how can I ride…?”

“Because you trust me enough to release your body to the mercy of the storm.” Kakashi howls suddenly, eerie now, somber and mourning. “My father hunted with my mother the same way. He loved her, wild thing that she was, a beast of red fang and bloodsoaked snarls, loved her enough to trust the sanctity of his fragile human flesh to her mercy, and she loved him back for it, for his acceptance and love for her no matter what form she was in. She hunted for him and killed for him and guarded his life with her own the same way he did hers and the very lightning of the heavens couldn’t harm them for each others’ beloved shields.” His pack howls with him, remembering. “And after she died, my father never hunted again for pleasure. Only to survive.

“The humans who lost the old ways never understood us--they called us animals for loving so simply and strongly regardless of held shape or sex, and slaughtered the hunters for their pelts--but of what use is shape or sex to the storm? It doesn’t bear the swell of hips or breasts or strong planes of muscle--and we are born from the storm and similarly don’t care. I trust you, Iruka, love you, and you trust me just as strongly--and _that_ is why you can ride and hunt at my side.”

“Oh.” And Kakashi feels Iruka’s face when he buries it against his fur and the hot sting of his tears amongst the sparks; he holds tight as if he’s dying in the same way his forest, his kingdom is, and weeps for the loss of his home and his father.

And Kakashi lets him cry and leaves pawprints scorched like the path of lightning from ground to sky burnt into the moss and stone that he treads upon, and snarls, full-bodied and _angry_ when Danzo and his weapon come into view.

Danzo sees him and yanks at the bandages on his body when he does, unraveling the wrappings with the motion to reveal red eagles’ eyes buried in his flesh, fixed and unblinking; he seizes his weapon by the back of the collar and the metal container that holds the Forest God’s head--and blinks out of existence.

“What?!” Guruko yelps, and Pakkun barks at the others.

“Track him down!” He looks back at Kakashi. “Boss, you got anything?”

“Iruka?” he says gently, and Iruka tightens his grip. Kakashi can feel the prickle of his searching chakra in the air as they run even against the energy of his electricity.

“There!” he calls and points to the west; the pack wheels and Urushi is the first to find the new trail.

Danzo jumps away every time they close on him, and with each eye he renders blind, the more desperate he looks; Kakashi and Iruka and his pack hound him all the way out past the edge of the forest, skirting past Irontown along the flanks of the lake it rests in.

“Press him!” Kakashi bays to the pack and peels away from them to come up against the town’s battered walls; Iruka demands to know what he’s doing, and Kakashi replies, “Warning the innocent ignorant” before howling at the walls. “LADY KUSHINA!”

There’s a flurry of weapons rising, and Kakashi can feel the sights of rifles upon him and holds firm in the face of them. There’s a pause, then the lady’s red head emerges from above the battlements, staring down at them.

“Kakashi?!” she yells back. “Is that--a wolf?”

“ _I’m_ the wolf, Lady Kushina,” he yelps back, laughing despite himself. “Lady, the false dawn that rises upon the horizon is a sign of doom--take your people and flee onto the lake’s surface! The water will shelter you from the dying god!”

“Wh--” Kakashi sees her glance at the mountains and the growing light of the beheaded Forest God as it approaches. She quickly turns her attention back to him, voice sharp. “Why should I trust you?”

“Have I offered harm to you and yours or given you reason to suspect me?” he barks back. “Your husband is safe, as is Gai--they were betrayed by Danzo. He was the one to slay the eagles and start this war. He struck down your husband, but he was saved by the Forest God’s blessing--the same way that I was. Kushina, please--trust me in this! Take your people and sail upon the lake--you will be safer there!”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Hunt down peace!” And with that, Kakashi turns tail and runs to catch up with his pack; lightning strikes from the clouds above the earth where he stands, and he hears Kushina begin to yell at her people to evacuate to the lake’s surface before the rushing wind of their passage masks her words.

“They trust you,” Iruka sounds surprised.

“I’ve given them no reason to not,” Kakashi says back as he races across the dying grass in massive leaps and bounds. “And they are good people. That is what I saw with eyes unclouded.”

Iruka falls silent, and they catch up with the pack; all of the eagles’ eyes upon Danzo that are not his right are silvered over, blind from the power he’s sapped from them to bend time and space. He and his weapon fight off the pack that snap and spark at their heels, and Kakashi yells to him as they move, dancing around each other.

“Shimura Danzo! Relinquish the Forest God’s head!”

“Why?” he snarls back. “The Forest God is _dying_ ; with the advent of the dawn, its bloated existence will be ended and humanity will have its chance at success. Why would you stand against that? Or are you more _animal_ than man?”

His weapon darts forward, striking at his muzzle with a pair of blades; Iruka vaults off of Kakashi’s back, drawing Kakashi’s blade and intercepting the attack--the two spill away down the slope, fighting, and half the pack slips away to harry and help them while the rest stay at Kakashi’s sides. He himself bites at Danzo, dodging the thin knife that he slashes at his shoulder, and presses him, snapping at his limbs, trying to make him drop the container that holds the Forest God’s head.

He can feel the prickle of the beheaded god approach them and his rising desperation increases; they’re running out of time and facing down the dawn and this is the only chance that he has--his dogs hem in Danzo, crowd him close and bite into his flesh and keep him off-balance, and Kakashi lunges, using the last of the strength in his form to call _lightning_ to his forward charge.

The energy crackles and lances ahead, straight for Danzo’s chest--and passes through the man, his flesh becoming intangible as his right eye goes blank and blind.

 

And Kakashi--Kakashi loses his grip on his second form with the massive depletion of chakra and he slips back to human even as momentum carries him forward, as his pack loses their spark, as he drags at the last drops of determination in him and collects the lightning and thunder around his right hand and rams the mass of energy and electricity home through Danzo’s chest before the man has time to recover.

Danzo's eyes go wide, and his grip on the container slackens, the metal holder thudding to the ground and starting to ponderously roll downhill; a thread of blood leaks out from between his lips and he stares at Kakashi as though seeing him for the first time as they all still.

“... You would have been a magnificent weapon.” Danzo says.

“Yes. I would have,” Kakashi replies.

His smile is bloody, his teeth stained red. “How surprising. But I suppose you’ve already found your purpose. A pity.”

“Only for the other potential paths. I’m quite happy with the one I'm on.”

“Of course. I would expect nothing less from you...” And his eyes close, and his body slides limply from Kakashi’s forearm, and thus does Shimura Danzo pass from the world.

 

Kakashi stares silently at the body, then staggers down the hill to where Iruka and Danzo’s former weapon are still clashing, fighting bone-deep exhaustion and the encroaching darkness eating at the edges of his vision; his pack trails after him, whining anxiously.

“Almost there,” he murmurs to them, then raises his voice. “Shimura Danzo is dead.”

The weapon freezes, as does Iruka, and the boy’s dark eyes dart from Kakashi to the bloody former person behind him to the Forest God’s container close by; he tenses and Kakashi says, “We need it to return it. I don’t want to kill another person today. Will you stand aside?”

The boy licks his lips nervously, a hectic flush of panic rising to his cheeks; his eyes flick above to the form of the beheaded Forest God looming towards them. “I’m a weapon. Not a person,” he says flatly.

“You have no wielder,” Iruka says. His blade is ready, but he’s watchful, not hostile.

“Then I’m worthless. A sword without a hand is nothing but useless metal.”

“A weapon can outlive its wielder,” Kakashi says. “The blade that Iruka holds was mine, and before me, it was my father’s, and his father’s father’s before him. A weapon can find a new home. It doesn’t have to be destroyed with the death of its wielder, chasing its wielder’s final dream.”

The boy licks his lips again, but the tips of his blades lower. “Then who will find a place for me?”

“The lord of Irontown,” Kakashi says, and he can feel how true the words are; Minato, who has given so much and given so many a second chance will surely have a place for a boy that doesn’t consider himself anything more than a well-sharpened blade. “Will you stand aside? Or chase your previous master into death?”

There’s a moment of hesitation--and then the boy sheaths his blades abruptly, letting his hands hang open and empty at his sides. He doesn’t speak, but his actions are enough; Kakashi says to his dogs, “Keep him safe” as Iruka and he turn to the Forest God’s head. The container is rattling slightly, and they don’t have to look at each other to feel the others’ anticipation and nervousness.

“Dawn’s almost here,” Iruka says.

“Let’s return it,” Kakashi replies and unlocks the container; green-gold blood like sap wells up from underneath the lid, pushing it away, and, inside, the Forest God’s head floats, its antlers diminished to soft buds and its green eyes open.

They track from Kakashi to Iruka and then turn upwards as the beheaded god looms above them; both reach inside and grip the Forest God’s head, lifting it skywards as dawn's glow begins to light the sky.

 

The abrupt cessation of the body’s mournful wail is ringing, and Kakashi’s voice sounds out clear into the sudden silence.

“God of the gods’ forest! Please, accept your head and forgive those of the town for their transgression!” The drip of the god’s blood upon him stings and hurts, cutting straight lines into him that heal over instantly, just like the marks of Obito’s curse. He sways with his exhaustion and the many small marks of pain, and Iruka’s free arm wraps around his waist, clinging steady to his hip; the god’s blood affects him similarly but he holds as firm as the forest’s bones.

“Rest in peace, God of the gods' forest!” he calls, and his voice is sorrowful even as it’s strong. “And… thank you! For everything!”

 

And the roar of the Forest God’s body descending upon them in a blaze of red-gold light to engulf its head and them is like the pulse of the distant sea against a far shore, the wind whispering through the trees, and the song of the heavens overhead; it’s peaceful and loud and silent all at once and into the paradoxical cacophony two voices speak.

_Thank you._

_Live well._

And the Forest Gods’ words echo like ripples of golden laughter across the still pool of gentle silence Kakashi and Iruka sink into.


	18. Chapter 18

Kakashi dreams.

He dreams of a dark, quiet pool and his arms wrapped warm around Iruka the same way that his are wrapped around him; he dreams that they slumber there, peaceful, and that Obito’s eye stills in his skull and an echo of the eagle’s voice tells him thank you and lets go of revenge.

He dreams that a vast tree sprouts and grows to the north of Irontown in that singular moment, and that the Forest God falls gentle even as galaxies bloom within it again, banished by the light of the dawn. He dreams that grass grows through his bones and the tree’s roots spread through his veins and that they purge the remnants of the Forest God and Obito’s curse from his body as it erases the lattice of scars that had spread across him.

And potential, possibility, spools out before him, and he tightens his arms around Iruka in his slumber, knowing that this is his reward--a future that includes peace.

 

He’s woken by wet noses snuffling at his neck and chest, and he stirs underneath their assault and mumbles a sleepy complaint at his pack. They laugh at him and call him lazy and tell him he needs to wake up because the day’s begun and don’t bother to hide their relief.

So he opens his eye to the sight of tall green grass and wildflowers and the evidence of the Forest God’s rampage covered by new growth--not healed, but life begun anew.

Iruka stirs in his arms and opens his eyes and blinks at him sleepily before smiling unguardedly at Kakashi.

“I dreamt of something peaceful,” he mumbles against his skin, and Kakashi smiles suddenly, utterly relieved, and says, “Me too.”

They sit up, cradled in the roots of the vast new tree that's grown over them from the seed, the gift the Forest God had left within Kakashi, and spend a long moment just staring out into the valley of Irontown, admiring the way the sunlight sparkles off the clear blue of the lake.

“The forest is gone,” Iruka finally says, and there’s sadness mingled with acceptance in his voice.

“The old forest is gone,” Kakashi replies, “but it’s not all dead. It’ll grow back.”

“Yes…” And Iruka exhales slowly and leans over to rest his head on Kakashi’s shoulder. “... the Forest God really did tell us to live, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for another long moment and watch Asuma appear from the fallen trees of the former forest with Gai and Minato on his back, picking his way down to the lake’s shore. Minato spots them and raises an arm in a silent hail, and Kakashi waves back.

“You’re going back to Irontown, aren’t you?” Iruka asks.

“I feel a bit responsible for them. I caused a lot of change. And I have the most practical experience with the old ways. I should stay with them for a bit, help them rebuild, make sure Minato doesn’t accidentally blow up too many things,” he replies honestly. Iruka huffs in laughter.

“And I should go back to the forest. Help Kurenai and the eagles.”

Kakashi squeezes Iruka in response to the wistfulness in his voice. “I’ll come visit. And you can come visit as well. You’re also the second person here who’s capable of manipulating chakra, so you’ll probably need to come around later to make sure Minato’s _kid_ doesn’t blow everything up.”

Kakashi feels Iruka’s full-bodied twitch of surprise. “And why would I do that?”

“Because you have finer chakra control than I do and because Naruto has even more chakra than _I_ do.”

“... you’re joking.”

“I wish.”

They both sit in silent contemplation of the explosion-ridden future until Asuma lopes back into view, lingering unobtrustively as he waits for them; they stand and turn to each other under the shade of the tree and exchange smiles and ignore how difficult it is to seperate themselves from each other already. Kakashi wraps arms around Iruka and squeezes tight, tucking his face into the curve of his neck, breathing deep and savoring his warmth; Iruka shifts underneath him to bare the length of his throat and Kakashi rumbles, runs his lips from his collarbone to below his ear along his heartbeat, feeling a thread of possessiveness kindle at the base of his spine.

“..... I’ll visit,” Iruka manages, and his fingers tighten on Kakashi’s waist.

“Good,” he replies, and they stand there like that for long moments more, memorizing each other, before they reluctantly disentangle themselves and step apart.

Iruka leaves with Asuma, disappearing into the trees, and doesn't look back, and Kakashi stands on the grassy hill, watching the place where he'd vanished, savoring the breeze that ruffles through his hair for one long breath before he whistles for his pack and starts down the slope to return to Irontown.

He might as well get a good start on that future of peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote! I hope everyone enjoyed (run) as much as I enjoyed writing it, because I had a hell of a great time with it, HAHA~
> 
> Actually--I lied a little. I've written a bit more in his verse, mostly a whole bunch of small one-chapter fics (eight of them planned, to be honest) that take place after this 'official' end--so if that sounds like something you'd like, keep an eye out for them! I'll post them at unplanned times in the future!


	19. Coda 1

“My Eternal Rival!”

Kakashi raises an eyebrow without straightening, finishing sorting the broken roof tiles from the unbroken ones in the pile in front of him before sitting up and turning where he is to look over his shoulder at the man.

“Hello Gai. Did you need something?”

Gai strikes a flamboyantly expressive pose, worthy of theater, and booms, “I wish to Challenge You to a Feat of Skill! Do you have enough time today to accept my Challenge?”

Kakashi glances down at the piles of tile he’s sitting in, then shrugs. “Shouldn’t you be glued to Minato’s side?”

“Our Gracious Lord has given me leave to Pursue my own Occupations for the rest of the day! Lady Kushina is guarding in him my stead.”

“Ah.” Kakashi stands then and stretches, brushing dust off of himself. “Sure. What’s on the menu for today?”

“A bout of hand-to-hand combat!” Gai shifts his post to strike another. “At the limits of our skill! Save otherwise fatal blows and crippling!”

“Outside the walls, though. I think my ears are still ringing from Granny Tsunade’s last scolding.”

“It’s Wonderful to see such a Fine Specimen of the Skilled Elderly with such a Youthful Strength to her Lungs!” He pauses. “But, yes, I would agree that we spar outside the city.”

They pick their way through Irontown--the place had taken a beating with Lord Kaguya’s attack immediately followed by the Forest God’s rampage. Buildings had been destroyed, the walls had been damaged, and the foundry had been the worst hit, the fires within extinguished and the floor overgrown with greenery the same way the rest of the town was.

The first day had been the worst, with Minato still adjusting to his new, silent, condition, counting the survivors who’d managed to evacuate successfully, and burying and blessing the dead. That night, everyone had huddled in the center of the town in the area they’d managed to clear of overgrowth, and Kakashi had used Itachi’s flame chakra to made them a fire strong enough to last through the night, fed by the ruins and wreckage of the town.

Gai and he clash in the shade of the massive tree to the north, Kakashi kicking off his new sandals (he’d carve himself geta when he got the time); he wiggles his toes in the grass and he and Gai trade blows at a frenetic pace, on the border of blurring with speed.

Gai mixes styles and schools unabashedly, keeping Kakashi on his toes, and he counters with the occasional chakra-reinforced move and dirty fighting. Kakashi is teaching those of Irontown capable of chakra manipulation, but it’s a long process and Gai hasn’t mastered it yet. When he does, though, he’ll be capable of a fully-unleashed fight. And Kakashi has no doubt he’ll master it.

He’d asked him on the advent of their rivalry why he did this, insisted on challenging him--and Gai had grinned and struck a pose and said that he sought the challenge of a combative lifestyle! And that he sought to constantly challenge himself through it and thus live as beautifully and youthfully as he could!

It had been a surprisingly straightforward response. Later, Kakashi had asked Minato why Gai was so loyal to him. The lord had glanced up from the scroll he’d been reading, deciphering his family’s legacy with the benefit of Hiruzen’s gifted knowledge, and stared thoughtfully at Kakashi for a long moment before sighing and picking up a calligraphy brush.

 _Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you,_ he wrote. _I doubt you’ll treat him differently about it. Gai is loyal to me because I accepted him to Irontown despite him being an exiled criminal and murderer._ He had set down his brush, pushed the scrap of wood he’d written on towards Kakashi, and then shrugged at him, smiling a little, before returning to his scroll.

(Kakashi had asked Gai about it the next time he’d challenged him--”So what if I wanted to know beforehand that you’d accidentally killed your last rival?”--and Gai had stood silent and still and Kakashi could see the marks of his long journey to Irontown on him and the guilt the man still held for being the cause of it before Gai had replied honestly, “Because you are stronger than me--and I have no doubt that you would be able to forcibly restrain me if your life became threatened.”

Kakashi thinks that Gai could hunt at his second form’s side as well--it takes a great amount of trust to place one’s life willingly, voluntarily, repeatedly, into the hands of one potentially lethal.)

(Kakashi had clapped him on the back and told him as much, and had laughed and stood solid at his side as Gai wept glad tears for his acceptance.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tl;dr: Gai was given the choice of exile or execution for accidentally killing his last eternal rival and journeyed like a traveling monk, collecting techniques and styles along the way until he ended up at Irontown, where Minato accepted him despite his criminal past, thus earning his loyalty.
> 
> Gai follows a sort of nonlethal blood knight philosophy in this verse, where he wants to collect and master as many unarmed hand-to-hand styles as he can.
> 
> Kakashi and Gai have a warrior's bond of trust, similar to how it is in canon (having each other watch each others' backs), thus allowing Gai to have the level of trust needed to hunt with Kakashi-as-a-hound if need be--being able to ride/be near one of his family's hunters is dependent on the level of trust, not the type of trust (platonic vs romantic).
> 
> Also Minato is mute due to basically getting his throat crushed by Danzo--Eboshi loses her arm in the movie and I scrabbled around for something analogous, coming up with this. He still had to pay a 'price' for his part in the Forest God's death, but I felt like it would have been inappropriate for what I was going for to have him lose a limb--and having to communicate with ink&paper helps with his switch over to seals and contributes to Sai's style as well.


	20. Coda 2

They rebuild Irontown and adjust to life again.

Some of the greenery that had grown within the walls had sprouted into trees and, in one case, an actual forest; they tear down some walls and repair the others, and Kakashi and Minato collaborate to raise another few islands from the depths of the lake.

(Neither of them mention how they resemble the former god’s stepping stones, but it’s an unspoken fact.)

There’s a lot of ladders and stairs to repaired houses stacked on top of each other and bridges connecting the islands to each other and the other shore, and Irontown extends to the north all the way to the vast tree--just far enough to not disturb it with the bustle of the town, but enough that it’s only a few minutes walk away.

The foundry becomes a smithy and armory--Minato draws one major seal for the forge on the floor of the building that knocks him out for a few hours upon its completion and leaves him toddling around unsteadily for the next two days, weak as a newborn fawn.

The lord officially renames the town after the major repairs are completed and after several of his increasingly ridiculous suggestions for said names are shot down by Kushina; Irontown becomes a village hidden in the leaves--Konoha.

Overall though, life before isn’t too different from life after--just _shifted_ with the knowledge that Minato has gained for the price of his voice and the assistance that Kakashi provides.

( _Show me how to walk on water_ , the lord writes one day, and Kakashi finds himself standing on the lake’s surface, laughing helplessly as Minato drags himself out of the water, bedraggled and soaked, to level a filthy, angry glare at him.

Kakashi’s mirth lasts as long as it takes for Minato to tackle him off the surface, breaking his concentration and drenching them both.)

(Kakashi finds him instructing Danzo’s former weapon one day--the boy has been dubbed Sai after the weapons Minato uses. Sai learns his namesake, how to disable instead of kill, and picks up chakra control as well, assimilating it with the ease of the young. He’s not as good at seals as his master is, but he learns how to draw and, sometimes, Kakashi sees honest, shy smiles flick across the youth’s face.

Seeing him and Gai guarding Minato together though, flanking the lord like a pair of extremely mismatched bookends, never fails to make Kakashi laugh.)

Naruto learns how to run and climb, and everyone in Konoha becomes a surrogate babysitter temporarily as he pops up _everywhere_. The boy seems well on the way to become a blond terror worthy of kid-Iruka.

(Kushina learns chakra control as well, though her talents lie in an area utterly different from her husband’s--she excels at strengthening and reinforcing her own strength and limbs, and Tsunade even learns a little of it, along with as much of the healing arts Kakashi, Hiruzen’s knowledge, Minato’s family’s scrolls, and even Iruka can give her. It’s incredibly terrifying to see a wizened older lady smash the fist that she’d just used to knit together a broken bone into the ground and create a fissure that splits the earth before her.)

(She and Kushina are excellent friends, and Kakashi finds out she’s basically Naruto’s godmother. Tsunade and Kushina’s _fights_ are also the stuff of legend--the most memorable being the one they’d gotten into when the elder discovered the younger’s second pregnancy. Though it had actually been more of a side-effect of Kushina attempting to _stop_ Tsunade from beating _Minato_ black and blue over it.)

(Personally, Kakashi couldn’t blame him--it really was a new beginning and that was plenty of reason to celebrate. Iruka had whacked him upside the head for that one even as he’d laughed at the leer Kakashi had shot him.)

(Tsunade does eventually calm down--she gains a protege of sorts in the form of a man and the woman he brings with him that shows up at the gates one day wanting to start over. They’re a blond and a redhead--two colors that managed to not be passed on to the tiny daughter they bring with them, who has vibrantly strawberry hair that looks pink in certain lights.

He calls himself Kizashi, she calls herself Mebuki, their child is named Sakura, and Naruto falls into immediate unreciprocated infatuation with her. All the adults intervene after the time Sakura punches him in the face with chakra-fueled force and manages to break his nose; Tsunade even manages to look a little contrite about teaching her the technique so young--around her pride for Sakura having mastered it already.)

Minato takes Hizashi and Hiashi aside one day after the town is renamed, furrows his brow, and grabs both their hands; a minute later, both of the twins shout in surprise, bringing everyone in the building onto alert (eliciting an emotional response from a Hyuuga is a difficult proposition at best and impossible at worst). Kakashi and Kushina rush into the sideroom to find both twins beside themselves, tearing up, alternately hugging each other and Minato, and able to _see_.

Minato admits he got the idea from a scroll and some of Hiruzen’s memories, using information about traits carried true in the bloodline of a family, and had just given the chakra of both men a push into unlocking theirs--the byakugan, a nearly three-hundred and sixty degree view of the world through the chakra landscape. Its activation makes the veins around the Hyuugas’ eyes bulge terrifyingly and drains slowly at their chakra, but both of the twins are too ecstatic at having some form of sight to care. They practice the switch over and over again, with and without Minato’s help, and then teach it to the rest of their family. Some pick it up easier than others, and none of them can sustain it permanently, but even a glimpse of the world after so long spent in darkness is enough for them.

(Many of the stoic Hyuuga weep openly at their first ‘look’ at Konoha, and Kakashi sees Kushina slip an arm around Minato’s waist and grin openly at him in unabashed joy as they watch the twins' family abandon their prescribed fate of dying blind and useless.)

It’s not perfectly idyllic of course--they may be able to draw the metal directly out of the sand now without harming the trees above (that one had been mostly Kakashi’s idea, with a little input from Minato), but Minato refuses to make any more rifles. Income isn’t as stable, and though Kakashi manages to convince Iruka into helping him and Minato create a terraced series of muddy flats against one side of the valley Konoha rests in, the rice they can plant there won’t be viable until next year.

The answer of how to survive comes, unexpectedly, from an attack by Lord Kaguya’s recollected forces. He’s gathered as many men as he'd had gold for, from the looks of it, a veritable army that makes Konoha lock the gates tight after the eight of them.

Kaguya’s men face off in the battlefield against him, Gai, Sai, Tsunade, Hiashi, Hizashi, Kushina, and Minato, and Kakashi can see the way they laugh at them, bringing a child and an aged woman into battle with them against their entire force.

They’re not laughing after those of Konoha attack, and though the battle could have been unpleasant in the potential ensuing slaughter, Minato had ordered them to kill as few people as possible--most of the men on the field are mercenaries, and Minato feels as though it’s unfair to destroy ignorant men just doing their jobs.

Kakashi sees Kushina and Tsunade cracking open the earth below the feet of a wing of the army; Minato and Sai scrawl seals or creatures onto the scrolls hung at their sides and send gusts of wind, water, or monsters into the fray, Minato’s seals spewing power and the elements against them as Sai’s stylized tigers and serpents immobilize them. Hiashi and Hizashi activate their byakugan with twin bloodcurdling shouts, eyes snapping wide, and tear into the men with the flats of chakra-enhanced blades in a mirrored dance of nonlethal broken bones.

 

And he and Gai give each other a look and join in barehanded, utterly weaponless except for themselves.

 

Kaguya’s army breaks and scatters in terror, wailing about the gods and demons fighting them, and soon the battlefield is mostly cleared save for those too injured to flee.

Tsunade heals the worst off of them so they can help their comrades away as Kushina gives them the option of joining the town in a truly remarkably loud speech about the benefits of Friendship and Camaraderie that has Gai near tears with admiration. To Kakashi’s surprise, some actually _do_ agree to come with them.

The first letters wanting to hire guards and escorts for journeys or shipments come on the heels of Kaguya’s proposed peace treaty, and Minato and Kakashi trade twin looks of astonishment over the pile of missives before Minato snorts and breaks into croaky laughter. Kakashi can’t help but join in at the absurdity of the situation, and it takes a while for both of them to calm down.

Then they spend the next hour reading through all of them and figuring out who they can send and which would be most profitable to accept.

Kakashi, Gai, and Sai leave the next day to fulfill some of the offers and come back with more offers and enough money from them and other side jobs taken on the journey back to see the town through winter.

(Kakashi apologizes profusely to Iruka for leaving for so long in his own way, and thus completely misses the ruckus that occurs when Konoha finds a massive, red, white, and  _talking_ toad in one of the women's bathhouses; Tsunade had been nearby and had reacted by punching the thing in the face and sending it through a few walls.

The toad had declared love right then and there, and Kushina, now far along enough in her pregnancy to show, had to restrain the elder from beating the toad god into a pulp.)

(“Why didn’t you tell me about Jiraiya arriving?” he asks Iruka the next time they meet; Iruka gives him a throaty laugh as he pulls at the tie of his shirt, nuzzling close.

“And ruin the surprise?” he says before biting him at the crook of his neck.

“And here I thought I’d been punished enough,” Kakashi manages; it’s the last coherent sentence both of them say for a while.)

(And if Iruka shoves his wolf mask into Kakashi’s hands before he leaves the next morning and makes no move to untie Kakashi’s blade at his hip or return Rin’s dagger from around his neck, well, they don’t say anything about it, and Minato certainly doesn’t look surprised when he sees Kakashi with it later in the day, the thing slung sideways over the left side of his head in lieu of the bandages he’d used to use to keep Obito’s eye covered.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marriage proposal? noooo, i have no idea what you're talking about >v>


End file.
